Originally Posted by punkalouver
And I know that according to a Flight Safety Foundation(perhaps the best known safety study group) publication, a JAL 747 captain figured the could go against the RA and visually avoid a DC-10. He was right. He missed by 135 meters and only injured 99 people on his plane and lodged a galley cart in the ceiling(following an RA is a one-quarter G manouver by the way).
To my experience, almost no accident can be traced to one single failure. There are always a large number of occurences, that interactively lead to (near-) disaster. Perhaps you should have a look at Reasons "Swiss Cheese Model". In the JAL-JALincident for example, an important factor was the mix-up of callsigns by ATC.