alf5071h
While there is a lot of good words in what you wrote, I do feel that it is too wordy and reaches too far in comparison with a well regulated system such as aviation with a far less regulated trust me approach of the financial sector.
The issuer of the MEL does have a responsibility to assume a degree of other errors. Typically a probabilistic approach should treat this based on experience with all known faults in asimilar machine. However such assumptions can not imagine statistically improbable combinations of human error where no such subtantiated reports have been presented from history.
Of course I am not privy to all the facts surrounding this latest accident still under investigation. But I am drawn to the so called newly released NASA data suggesting that numerous incorrectly configured aircraft takeoffs have been attempted and some even in the presence of failed TOWs systems.
Is this the failure of a system by itself? or is this a failure of communication between the user and the MEL writer.
I'm not ready to discect this further at this time because I don't even know if the MEL writer or Span Air had any idea of the results of the NASA study beforehand. Sometimes safety related studies are kept even private from the manufacturer and the users.