Thanks a lot for your detailed explanations WR 6-3 . One is nearly always feeling more educated after reading your lengthy posts .
To answer your 2 questions , the fist one is easy , over my nearly 50 years of aviation experience , except recently where we start to discuss seriously Human factors, Fatigue , Mental well being , it was always to blame the Pilots or the controllers first when you can , and protect management and manufacturers was the priority
Al Wiener had even a law for that in the 1980s : .
Law # 21. :In aviation, there is no problem so great or so complex that it cannot be blamed on the pilot.
To the second question , concrete examples, yes there are . For instance ,nearly all the Japanese accidents and serious incidents resulted in pilots or controllers" being thrown under the bus" as you say , ,some sent to jail, and fired , because in their legal system someone has to be blamed . Watch the upcoming Haneda one .
It you want one , the one I know pretty well is . the Nantes ( France) collision , 2 civil aircrfat under military ATC ) Iberia and Spantax) back in 1973 , at the first trial the Spantax pilot was blamed to protect the military ATC institution , (but overturned in appeal a few years later )
In the US I do not immediately recall any particular involving military ops but there must be some similar to KDCA,, maybe someone has time to run through a proper judicial database .