Safety in Aviation is always a trade off . In ATC, safety is first, but expediting the traffic and providing capacity to cater for the continuous traffic growth is a very close second.
As an EASA ( European Aviation Safety Agency )top official recently said : Safety must not restrain the market "
You have to understand that a pre-departure clearance , past the first altitude, point to be flown to and SSR code becomes more a " wish list" than a contract set in stone.
Arguing a criminal case against pilots or controllers based on incomplete or incorrect pre-departure ATC clearance will be easy to wipe off technically.
ATCWatcher,
I proposed adherence to Flight Plans on the grounds that airways should have predefined FLs between waypoints in order to avoid collisions and also predefined rules on FL in case of lost communication. So a clearance that didnīt adhere to a filed flight plan would have to be avoided IMHO.
I will stress that my instance for adherence to flight plans derives mostly from the possibility of a communication loss. If the possibility of a communication loss is considerably reduced then I think that predefined FLs really would not have that importance.
BTW I read some posts in the "TCAs philosophy" thread and I think the main issue was the potential discrepancy between a TCAS RA and a FL change ordered by ATC.
Well, maybe if we had predefined rules regarding FL changes given a certain airway and A/C direction equally applicable to RAs and ATC ordered FL changes then this might (might) not be an issue anymore.
I really donīt know if such changes would increase or reduce the costs of ATC. I am not even 50% certain they would be really helpful but I would like to see some discussion about.
Regarding the NXL600/GOL1907 collision, after reading the data from the Brazilian Chamber of Deputies Commission Report I concluded that the main cause was Brasilia ATC simply "forgetting" the NXL600 flying at the wrong altitude even though THEY HAD ALL DATA to order the appropriate FL change when the aircraft entered the UZ6 airway and before the Legacyīs transponder went off and contact with the A/C was lost.
So the problem wasnīt exactly the wrong clearance given at S. Jose dos Campos.