Hi Just You!
justme69
I think that, deep inside, we agree more than we disagree.
Not only inside ! It is just that I wanted to add a "plus" here and there to your most valuable posts ...
What I was trying to say is that I object to those that state, in cases similar to this, that they do NOT blame the pilots but the airlines for these accidents.
Generally speaking, pilots are "without pity" against their colleagues ... except in public, and especially when those colleagues died due to their own mistakes.
Blaming dead pilots seems indecent ... In fact they already paid for their mistakes ...
And, it is not "fair" either ... Because pilots are human being, and as such, they do mistakes. Every day ... They will put the flaps to 11 instead or 15 ... or things like that. They will set up wrong frequencies, wrong heading bugs ... Not too serious, and almost every time, they will correct by themselves, or be saved by the other pilot, or by the check list, or by a "back up" safety device (TCAS ...) or by sheer luck .
Human failability is a part of the safety equation ...
When the mistake ends up in a fatal accident, it means that the pilots made an error, of course, but also that all the accident prevention program failed.
Since it is too late to improve the pilots, it's time to look at the system!
A pilot is a grown adult and knows very well that he is not doing his job right when he doesn't follow checklists as trained. The fact that nobody has caught him acting that way, doesn't mean that he is not responsable and, like a child, is not liable for his own actions.
Many pilots are not of that kind of reasonnable, wise, humble, persons ... If they do it their own way, they think they are doing a better job ... (sometimes, it could be true ... cfr those pilots silently reviewing killer items while lining up). Pilots are gods, you know ...
In big, safety conscious companies, it tooks a pilots generation to fully appreciate the benefits of a good CRM "spirit" ... God is no longer infaillible, a baby copilot can save the day!
Other people in the system may have also failed in their responsability (to catch and fire him), but you can't say: "I don't blame the pilots, I blame those who trained him", when those who trained him DID teach him correcly how to follow checklists and how to lower flaps and how important it was to do it right.
Ok, pilots are humans, they do mistakes. Every day ... They will put the flaps to 11 instead or 15 ... or things like that. They will set up wrong frequencies, wrong heading bugs ... Not too serious, and almost every time, they will correct by themselves, or be saved by the other pilot, or by the check list, or by a "back up" safety device (TCAS ...).
When an accident happens : "pilot error" - most of the times. Or : ATC error. Or : hardware failure (wing spar, rudder, fuel tank explosion ...).
Do you blame a cargo door for failing?
No, you want to investigate why that cargo door failed, and ultimately put the blame (and the responsibility) on the shoulder of those persons who ultimately approved the design, with the full knowledge it was flawed ... (Consider the infamous DC10 cargo door problem : the cargo door initial design system was flawed, the "design supervision people" caught the flaw and refused to approve the flawed design ... But the head of the FAA finaly approved it, after a minor correction ...
So when a crew proceed to take off without flaps and ends up into flames, the big questions are :
1. Understanding how such a mistake did happen ... and that is in fact looking at the system around the pilots, putting blame on some flaws of that "error prevention system".
2. How to improve things ...
Of course, recognizing the fact that the pilots made an error is crucial ... because it opens the question : how came they made that mistake?
But "blaming" the dead pilots ... is too indecent, unfair, useless.
I'm sure that, despite my poor english, we understand the nuance between "admitting the fact of a pilot error" and
blaming a dead pilot for making an error ...
For myself, I admit many errors, and I blame myself for those errors. I also improved a lot as a pilot looking at my own errors, at other pilots errors, and - with very great interest - looking at students errors ...
When the day comes when we have acces to CVR transcript, I think that we all shall learn a lot about "how to make a big mistake" ...