[thrill]

This is spot on. The strength and weakness in doing something as complex as safely landing an airliner full of people is all in the capability of the human mind to use technology. Especially in flying, I think (I did this for a career, a whole other career ago) it's easy to have everything going smoothly, then some "minor" thing be out of expectation, but hey things are going smoothly, so dismiss the minor thing because here's this other thing that does look just right, and ... and ... suddenly several mistakes have compounded.

It's sometimes harder when there's nothing impeding you at all to do everything right because the routine-ness of habit takes over. Being busy (but not overwhelmed), while more mentally and physically tiring, is sometimes easier, because you pay attention to the right things at the right time.

[ghaff]

This is true in all manner of domains. I've never flown but I can remember a number of times I've made (fortunately relatively inconsequential) mistakes that caused me to face-palm afterwards. Why? Not so much that I made a mistake. But that I could recall clearly a number of observations that I made but dismissed because they ran counter to what I "knew" was the reality of my situation.