I had a friend who was an emergency room doctor. Along with the horrifying stories, he told me of the jokes--many of them extremely disrespectful of those placed in their care--that the staff shared in order to maintain their sanity in the face of such carnage and weirdness.

They kept a running list on the wall of bizarre objects that had been found inside patients.

The point is that no matter how critical or dangerous one’s job may be, it eventually becomes routine over time, and it is a constant battle to keep from dropping one’s vigil.

Astronauts are trained and re-trained so that no matter what may occur, they reflexively follow procedure. Of course, they gear up for one big spaceflight at a time, so their alert systems are dialed up to the max. If you’re an airline pilot, or a heart surgeon going in to crack just another chest, it can get monotonous. Distraction is the tempting demon lurking in the wings.

When we fly, we pay to put our lives in the hands of other human beings, and in return assume a certain amount of professionalism from them. It’s an article of faith, which is why this story about the breaching of that faith so quickly dominated the national consciousness.

Maybe these guys would respond in a clinch with the same heroism as Capt. Sullenberger did over the Hudson when both his engines failed—that is, if they didn’t fly into a mountain first. But we’ll never know. Yanking their licenses was the least the feds could do.