I stand corrected - Mount Galunggung, not Mount Pinatubo. Back to the topic...
The reality is that affordable safety is everywhere, and is unavoidably everywhere.
The problem in aviation regulation - particularly in Australia - is that the estimation of the probabilities of things happening - like a double engine failure on a 777 or an engine failure in a C208 or PC12 - are almost invariably grossly overestimated. The required mitigations are, accordingly, almost invariably a gross overreaction. It’s across the regulatory spectrum, from air operator certification to medical certification. The proposal for 20nm CTAF procedures is a specific, recent example.
The reason for this is completely uncontroversial and well-understood. The contemplation of awful consequences - like a double engine failure in a twin jet at 35,000’ over the ocean or a mid-air near a CTAF - results in a natural overestimation of the probabilities of it happening.
Dick’s aeronautical engineer - if he exists - is merely being what’s known as ‘human’. He intuitively ‘knows’ that a four engined-aircraft ‘must’ be safer than a two engined-aircraft. His knowledge and experience and objectivity go out the figurative window when he intuitively ‘knows’ the comparative risks.
‘Everyone’ intuitively ‘knows’ that pilots with CVD ‘must’ not be able to meet the same competence standards as pilots without CVD, and therefore pilots without CVD ‘must’ be riskier than pilots without CVD.
Of course, as a matter of objective fact, the intuition is bollocks. But it is natural (and, purely coincidentally, very lucrative for those who make their living out of safety bureaucracy).
Manifestations of this are everywhere. Look at the component overhaul and replacement periodicities in most GA aircraft designed in the 50s/60s/70s. My favourite is the flap flex drive shafts on Beechcraft. There are aircraft with 10,000 hours, plus, flying around with the original shafts. There are thousands of aircraft with multiple thousands of hours on original shafts. What do you reckon the maintenance manual says about the ‘life’ of those shafts?
And then I think of the poor bastard LAME whom CASA crushed for not having replaced vacuum pumps on a Cessna 310 at 500 hours. The pumps were still going strong after 500 hours, one by a further 886.9 hours and the other by a further 1,599.6 hours. But he had to be crushed because someone had plucked 500 out of his arse to put in a maintenance manual 40 years ago, and the number thus became holy writ the breach of which was a safety heresy. The objective evidence of millions of hours of vacuum pump operation and the collective wisdom of what causes vacuum pump failure were irrelevant. That’s aviation ‘safety’ for ya...