Originally Posted by
Kit Sanbumps KG
It’s a simple fact that the AAIB does routinely apportion blame, by identifying pilots (and others) as responsible for events in which they played a role rather than looking for deeper ‘causes’ (they have only one human factors advisor on their staff). In the March bulletin, an airline crew are described as ‘Rushing to complete the pre‐takeoff procedures’. ‘Rushing’ is the act the report says they carried out, it is connected to the event, and therefore is blame. The report, by the way, contains absolutely no effort to address the repetitive nature of the fundamental issue, incorrect performance, and is deficient.
More importantly, AAIB’s primacy prevents effective investigation in cases where blame is exactly what’s needed (albeit through the courts). The Sala report’s almost total dismissal of the ‘grey market’ aspects of this crash is deeply worrying. We know the AAIB is an incredibly engineering-led organisation, despite working in a world where human factors are of much greater importance (just count the pages dedicated to the output of the two disciplines), but that shouldn’t mean it dismisses the fundamental causes, which in Sala, begin with the existence of the grey market and the total unwillingness of regulators (especially the UK CAA) to deal with it.
The two organisations are inextricably linked, as the most senior staff of both report in to the SoSfT, including for their ‘performance management’. It doesn’t take a genius to work out what the consequences of that are.
‘although the AAIB were very critical in their report language of the CAA’s record keeping with regard to pilot licensing.