I do not work in aero or auto, but I have a much higher expectation of training and retention of a commercial airline pilot than I do of a random Toyota driver.
I had a stuck accelerator on an old Ford F-150. The throttle inside the carb got stuck. I was lucky to have the Toyota case in my memory, so I just shifted into neutral.
It was an automatic, which I think is another factor -- the more direct control you remove from the driver, the less intuitive it becomes to compensate for a single system failure. Obviously a standard transmission driver would just hit the clutch.
(And I've had a similar failure on an unfamiliar motorcycle that just came out of storage. Pulling the clutch bail was the instinctive response, after manually untwisting the throttle did not work. I learned my lesson about old vehicles eventually. Trust nothing, verify everything.)
I had a stuck accelerator on an old Ford F-150. The throttle inside the carb got stuck. I was lucky to have the Toyota case in my memory, so I just shifted into neutral.
It was an automatic, which I think is another factor -- the more direct control you remove from the driver, the less intuitive it becomes to compensate for a single system failure. Obviously a standard transmission driver would just hit the clutch.
(And I've had a similar failure on an unfamiliar motorcycle that just came out of storage. Pulling the clutch bail was the instinctive response, after manually untwisting the throttle did not work. I learned my lesson about old vehicles eventually. Trust nothing, verify everything.)
Very sorry to hear about your dad!