Rainboe:
I agree with most of what you said.
But my opinion Is that nobody will do such mistakes intentionally, not a 14.000+ Captain, nor a 70.000-combined crew involved in a maintenance check flight, but they happened. Incompetence ? Maybe, but those accident happened unintentionally ! Accidents happen also to truck drivers and bus drivers (professional drivers), and also in that case they should not happen, and this is what a bus passengers expect from them : to safely arrive at the destination. Survived professional driver/pilots will probably undergo a trial, and I agree with that, if they are at fault , they deserve punishment, as everybody else. But my point is that for most of those accident neglicence (culpable neglicence ? negligence ‘in vigilando’, a lawyer would say ? ) probably is the main reason, and I agree with you that this type of mistake should not be made by professionals – whichever type of professional.