I read thru this document and found some of the comments within to be interesting thoughts that lend themselves to what JimL and a lot of other experienced North Sea folks are saying.
What struck me was the comment about a leveling off of the rate of improvement in the accident rate over the past Ten Years or so.
If one accepts there have been advances in avionics, auto pilots, training simulators and the like......there has to be an explanation for the leveling off in safety stats.
Are we not saying the same thing in this thread but not yet put into short concise statements what that holdup is caused by?
One particular quote struck me as being very astute and has some direct bearing upon our discussion.
Highlighting is mine and not in the report....
Airlines and regulatory authorities have the major
responsibility for running the aviation system and any report that appears to
demand change is either implicitly or explicitly critical of some equipment or
procedure that has already been approved, licensed, or authorised by those bodies.
Thus to implement change, these organisations have first to accept the notion that their previous rules or procedures were capable of improvement and may even have been wrong. Furthermore, it appears to be human nature for the messenger to be blamed for the message, and it is very tempting for operators and regulators to form negative views of the reporting system simply because the messages that it conveys can be uncomfortable to them.
http://www.etsc.eu/documents/bri_air3.pdf
Anyone care to start the "Bullet List" and set forth what they see to be the "links" in our chain we seem to have stretched out so far?