Originally posted by joernstu
What would have been and what was are two completely different things. Fact is that the Boeing crew did behave just like you said you would. You said, that this would be the rational action. This must mean: following the rational course of action did not prevent the collision for the Boeing crew in the Ueberlingen case. The mid-air itself proves this. I could go on like this for pages ...
It would appear that you
are going on. In the end, the vast majority of us follow the rational route and accidents are prevented. A few don't follow the rational route either intentionally or by mistake and only luck or chance prevents an accident as in the JAL case which I provided a link to and I'm sure you read. Most properly functioning systems and societies depend on the vast majority of us acting responsibly. Of course accidents and deaths occur frequently because of those who break the rules and occasionally to those who don't.
I hardly think that because the Boeing crew doing the proper procedure and dying because of it should mean that as a result we should all just stop following RA's and do something different on the off chance that the other guy may be not doing what should be done. After all that would be irrational(or lacking in LOGIC). As I said earlier it is an odds game with a much better chance of survival happening if you FOLLOW THE RA.
And fortunately people who behave like this(ignoring the RA) are few and far between, although there appear to be three on this thread. Strangely(according to their profiles), they all appear to be from Germany, two from near Bielefeld(the third an unknown German location) and two are aircraft accident analysts. One even has logic as an interest. What are the odds of that?