DUB-Greg:
Not sure of your background, but your address is curious. Accidents are the last thing anyone wants; and it would be impossible to know/guess how many close shaves there are everyday. What we know/hear about are frightening enough. Just because there is no smoking hole does NOT mean everything on the farm is rosy. There have been identified fatigue accidents and they were shovelled under the carpet. There have been numerous suspected others. Don't you think it strange that the whole fatigue issue has been aired on the ATC side of things, and it was all well received and caused raised eyebrows, but when the sharp end jockeys start to bleat, it is dismissed as whinging for a few extra payments? If you thought the authorities governing trains, boats and busses were derelict in their duties, when the lid came off after a few mishaps, I would hate to be in the shoes of some people after the next smoking hole caused directly by overwork, lowered standards, excess financial pressure, botched maintenance, various rule bending and cut corners is investigated. It happened in Valujet and the FAA was castigated for having a gross conflict of interest; that of safety and commercial oversight. The report said these should be divorced asap. I'm not sure if it happened in USA, and I'm mighty certain it ain't happened in EU. It's just a smoking hole waiting to happen. I have been in large airline in a major western EU country where commercial survival of the company was allowed by the local CAA to take precedent over crew rostering within local FTL's. Rules were bent to save money and blind eyes were turned. Only after a unionised airline took over the contract, and refused the roster, was anything done about it. That's only 1 instance; how many others are out there. Flags of convenience are rife with this. Foreign a/c flyng charters for operators in one contry, with local pax, using foreign FTL's that are illegal under local CAA rules. It's a joke. You could say that the idea of a JAA FTL scheme is the answer. We have been waiting for over 15 years. We are still waiitng for compensation to be introduced for aviation not being included in the 'working time directive'. That was 15 years ago and still nothing. Indeed working times have get worse, not better.
In any case, does it take an accident to show that working conditions are scandalous in such a safety concious profession in the 21st century? What ever happend to the balanced life. It is too much 'live to work', and NOT 'work to live'. We are always being taught to be proactive in accident prevention. The use of the human resource in the chain is for ever being weakened, be it the ATC, the engineer, the dispatch staff or the crew. Everywhere the power of the fast buck is driving the show. It is going to happen one day; the smoking hole.