I tend to feel the same way that there are accidents, and there are accidents. Yet in the drive to remain united as a pilot group, there is pressure to stay with the party line that this could have happened to anyone, therefore the pilots should remain onboard.
As pilots, does anyone seriously expect to remain part of the team if allowing a breakdown in procedure and safety resulting in not just a gross error, which is pardonable, but damage, which is not?
Wilful errors are violations of law. We're not talking about those, which are instances that usually validate instant dismissal. Next down the chain are unwitting errors, which are just that. They are not violations, and would not validate instant dismissal.
Nonetheless, unwitting errors made by a new First Officer are unacceptable in the grading system we use, and will inhibit a First Officer's promotion. We all know this to be true. Been there, done that perhaps.
I suspect we all agree that this was an unwitting error, by a crew, not an individual, and the issue of how it transpired is becoming a question of systemic error or operator error.
For those not in the know, systemic errors are system-based, suggesting the system needs to be changed to capture the error. Operator errors, on the other hand, require further training. Or not, if the error is gross enough.
'There go I but for the grace of God' as a logical approach to this issue just doesn't cut it for me. 'I could have made a mistake like this' is also limited in usefulness. Both are perfectly true statements, but they are not the basis of training a pilot group to ensure accidents don't happen.
!!!! does happen.
In the Turkish accident thread, few of the more experienced pilots suggest allowing the pilots in that accident, were they alive, the privilege of retaining their jobs. Why was this accident any different? How? It wasn't systemic, but operator-induced.
Pilots have a very big responsibility involving, amongst many other things, ensuring all errors along the chain are captured and either mitigated or erased so as to have little or no impact on the safety of the operation. That's a big task, and if it means taking off 22 minutes late, so be it.
In the rough and tumble of life, to ignore this truth (at least as I see it) is to ignore reality and, to follow on, what comes with it.
Don't lose sight of the ball.