>Volcano erupts in Indonesia
>Locals don't notice because they have shit weather radar
>747 flies through the dust cloud
>All 4 engines get filled with volcanic ash and burn out
>"Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. We have a small problem. All four engines have stopped. We are doing our damnedest to get them going again. I trust you are not in too much distress."
>Spend 12 minutes gliding, dropping 23,500 feet in the process
>The pilots are preparing to be the first 747 ever to attempt a water landing
>Finally one of the engines restarts
>But ILS is offline
>Windscreen is completely opaque due to ash, no way to clean it
>Manage to land running entirely on instruments
>Fatalities: 0
>Injuries: 0
Survivors: 263
Read "The Checklist Manifesto" and you understand why pilots follow their protocols. Outcomes like this are because they did everything exactly according to the checklist.
Seriously fantastic book and it's a quick read. Definitely recommended.
It's written by a surgeon who was involved in helping promote the use of checklists in healthcare. A lot of the book is about looking at their use in other places like aviation and construction and realizing why they work and how they can help in other places. The book spends a lot of time on the idea that some fields have become so complex with so many pieces that it's impossible for any one person to be able to track it all in their head on the fly and the effect that has in "can't afford failure" industries.
A book about checklists sounds like it'd be dreadfully dry and boring but the author is a solid writer and the book is full of a ton of really interesting vignettes -- I find people tend to fly through it. I first read it probably 10 years ago and it's one of those books that has really stuck with me since.
Checklists are great and they work.
Checklists and training/preparation.
A lot of times these super professional responses are from having practiced emergency procedures until the checklist may as well be tattooed on the back of their eyes.