Sandl,
You throw the comment about the lawyers getting invovled reference SOP's. It is easy to say that because things are approved they must be correct and safe. I've seen manuals issued to crews, especially the cabin crew books, that are so full of mistakes that they cannot have been read and studied by the approving authority. This is also borne out by the very short interval between the manuls being submitted and their approval issued. There is no way they can have been read and studied over. The authorities just trust the FLT OPS department as being responsible for their own skins and equipment; it would seem.
(comments welcome from those in the know)
I wonder what the consequence would be in an incident where the crew slavishly followed the SOP, even though due to airmanship and other experience they were doubtful about them, the proverbial hit the fan, metal was bent etc. Could the lawyers intervene and charge the crew with neligent airmanship, even though they followed the SOP's? Perhaps a little unlikely, but I highlight this because it is true that, sometimes, we all think we have a better way to do somethings, and the occaisional SOP seems either plain wrong, unnecessary or just dumb, however we are nuked if we don't follow it.