The point I am trying to make is that I think some of this unnecessary flying is costing more lives than it is designed to save. If it aint broke don't fix it!
doubleu-anker, this aeroplane had to fly sometime, if not on this flight then on the ferry back to NZ. IF the cause of the accident was something mechanical then it may well have just ended up biting someone else. It's highly presumptuous to make comment on the advisability of line crew doing "test flights" when for one, it wasn't a test flight, and two, we have no indication that the accident was caused by the acceptance flight profile. If anything, you should consider it a good thing that there were so few people on board and this didn't happen with a cabin full of passengers (of course that is no comfort for those who knew the people who died, but you know what I mean.)