Since we have seemingly now moved onto a focus on the human factor element (i.e. the
why behind the flight crew errors), I think it might be worthy to expand this topic a bit.
Clearly, these accidents have exposed a case where some presumably highly-trained and experienced professionals were put in a position where that training and experience did not rise to the task. Obvious errors were made that had fatal consequences. Since most of us would like to assume that this wasn't a case of malicious or negligent behavior, then presumably there were some significant human factor element behind these lapses.
I am referring, of course, to the various engineers, technical and supervisory staff that designed and approved MCAS for service.
Imagine, if you will, a parallel online forum in which aircraft-related engineer specialties debate over the various elements of these accidents from
their perspective. One could imagine certain individuals saying, "Why didn't they just design the friggin' software/hardware correctly?!" Others might defend their tribe by saying the design was sufficient, it was just that the operators weren't sufficiently skilled/trained to handle a malfunction. Still others might concede that, while yes, errors were made, the individuals who had their hands on the design/approval process were working under various constraints and pressures and that their errors were perfectly understandable from a human factors perspective. They would plead that, please, everyone take a breath and quit trying to
blame the engineers when it is obvious they were doing the best they could under the circumstances.
What would we make of such a conversation?
What I am trying to point out is that while some of us like to say "Boeing" messed up or "the FAA" messed up, the reality is that these organizations are simply made up of human beings who respond to their training, experience, and environment. Being human, they are just as much subject to the fallibilities of the human mind as were the pilots. There is even one study that lists precisely 188 types of cognitive errors that the human mind is subject to (
click here to read). These errors may be different than the ones the pilots were exposed to, but they were ultimately
human errors.
At some point, we will have two final accident reports detailing a list of primary and secondary causes to these accidents. Behind a fair number of these causes will be a human being who was not acting out of malicious intent or neglect. They were simply performing according to their training, experience, and environment. In the discussions on this and related threads, there quite often the refrain, "Stop blaming the pilots!" I don't have any problem with that sentiment since the act of "blaming" is largely an emotional response that tends to avoid getting to the root of the problem. That being said, identifying the root causes and proposing remedies isn't the same as blaming (unless someone chooses to interpret it that way).
So yes, how about we all stop blaming everybody who had a hand in these accidents, understand that behind every error there was likely a human factor element, and support those efforts to address and/or remediate those issues?