Doctors make mistakes. Programemrs make mistakes. Pilots make mistakes.
In fact, if you can actually get an airline pilot in a relaxed situation where he's certain you won't rat him out, you'll hear lots of stories about stupid mistakes. The fact that this inevitable human error almost never results in fatalities is a testament to the level of redundancy in air traffic procedures.
As a case in point, I talked to a pilot in one of Europe's major low-price carriers. They had an incident where both pilots literally fell asleep in the cockpit and were intercepted by German jets. Apart from the jet fighter escorts, the passengers never knew anything was off.
In fact, if you can actually get an airline pilot in a relaxed situation where he's certain you won't rat him out, you'll hear lots of stories about stupid mistakes. The fact that this inevitable human error almost never results in fatalities is a testament to the level of redundancy in air traffic procedures.
As a case in point, I talked to a pilot in one of Europe's major low-price carriers. They had an incident where both pilots literally fell asleep in the cockpit and were intercepted by German jets. Apart from the jet fighter escorts, the passengers never knew anything was off.