As a commercial jet pilot (not airlines, small jets by Cessna), my reaction to much of the coverage in, say, the NYT, was much the same. This was an "ordinary" event from a training perspective, and has a straightforward set of responses - fly the plane, memory items, checklist items (the QRH mentioned), etc. Indeed, as they mention, in a crew environment things are even more calm and responsibilities are (or should be) well defined.

I've had an engine failure in cruise flight (on a multi-engine piston plane) in a single-pilot situation. (I later wrote about it in a magazine article.) We train for that too - although not as frequently as airline pilots do who train at least every six months. It was also a non-event from a "what to do". In fact, the only time my single passenger mentioned she was made nervous (after we landed) was when ATC asked for the number of souls on board (which they knew from my IFR flight plan but they always ask). "When did I become a soul???"

One thing my best instructor always told me about an emergency: "First, wind your watch." In other words, don't panic and do things hastily and make things worse. Especially in cruise.

So, kudos to the flight deck crew for doing exactly what they had trained to do and successfully putting the plane on the ground after dealing with the emergency!

Kudos to the rest of the flight crew for what must have been total chaos and fear among the passengers and for doing what I'm sure was their absolute best to save the unfortunate victim.

And, in the end, let's all remember that this (seemingly) slightly uncontained engine failure could have been much, much worse and be glad of that. Let's also be thankful that the training airline pilots receive generally have situations that are much less benign than an engine failure in cruise and have it drilled in to them how to handle it.