Originally Posted by
LookingForAJob
To be fair, the reason we do accident and incident investigation is to identify weaknesses in the system and to introduce fixes to to prevent recurrence..
No argument there, but in the vast majority of cases the fixes often turn out to be modifications to the aircraft systems rather than (re)educating the flight crews, thereby leading to more system reliance rather than maintaining and acting on pilot awareness. I'm sure many of you are aware of CVR transcripts with wording similar to "why did the aircraft just do that". The more time the pilots have to spend minding the computer the less they have for maintaining situational awareness.
Next bit being said (partially) tongue in cheek. Many moons ago when I first started in ATC,, once a week (or maybe month) the computer systems would be shut down for a couple of hours and everything progressed manually. No one was hurt, no one died but everyone knew how to do their jobs should the electrons stop flowing. I am not suggesting the same for pilots, but it may be worth having some form of basic principles brought back to the flight deck, even if it is hand flying from take off to TOC and TOD to the ground. Admittedly this may not be a good idea in highly congested terminal areas but I am sure it could be fitted in somehow.