Phil;
Re,
Corporate pressure is to blame here.
Perhaps, but we can't "name" causes at present as we don't have all the information.
In information-gathering stages of investigation, the immediacy of data such as DFDRs, CVRs, METARS (both official, and, I see, "unofficial" (rapidly unfolding/changing wx, perhaps?) must be intelligently interpreted and combined with the gathering of "softer" information which is typically the human-factors side such as the obvious crew history as well as the factors which you have mentioned here.
Corporate pressures absolutely play a role in employee behaviours but cannot be singled out, first because such a project demands a very wide examination of cultures and not just this one accident. We only know that there is a smoking mess where there was once an airplane. All the rest is speculation - some of it reasonably conceived, a though I have expressed elsewhere, but much of it is still in the "eye/ear-witness accounts and second/third-hand anecdotes stage.
Such anecdotes do point somewhat, but all possibilities must remain open until eliminated through the data. "Soft" causes such as fatigue-related crew error, while having made it into accident reports a few times, (the Guantanamo accident is one of the few which cite fatigue as a primary cause, the AA1420 Little Rock accident comes close), but reports generally favour hard data because change is so difficult to cite and support in soft causes. (Don't get me wrong though - I have been fighting the fatigue-issue for years and Canada still has a long way to go in escaping a Monrovia-like regulatory environment when it comes to fatigue-risk management. - sorry for the momentary lapse!)
I cite these broader examples because they each have arisen in this thread as "the" cause of this terrible tragedy. Not so. There is only the possibility of a hierarchy of causes at present, and unless there is an unequivocal, immediate cause such as a deployed reverser, we must be cautious, (I am
not citing this as a potential "cause", I am expressing the notion of "clear-and-present" mechanical "failure" such as the Cranbrook B737 accident, vice what are almost certainly broader factors which must be considered as speculation turns to knowledge). Almost certainly, "one factor" will not be the case here and so speculation must take that into account.
BTW, I sure like your approach....it takes a short time to teach someone how to fly but it takes a lifetime to teach them when not to...
