Often there's lots of chimes going off, and in the case of Airbus, lots of little menu windows to acknowledge first before some electronic systems are usable.

Often there's lots of chimes going off, and in the case of Airbus, lots of little menu windows to acknowledge first before some electronic systems are usable. Also, task saturation can result in humans hearing but not recognizing alarms, which is often found on black boxes. Then you have the emotional response of the pilots realizing their careers are over. Unfortunately, the passengers in back are just along for the ride and have no idea about all that - they just wanted to get from Point A to Point B safely.