Every accident usually has something to teach pilots - this one doesn´t.
That is an interesting statement, related to what I was trying to say in my previous post. Naturally, my personal interest is in private GA accidents, where very few accidents have anything
new to teach pilots. It's the same mistakes repeated over and over and over, and the underlying reason is usually insufficient skills, violations, or commonly both.
What troubles me is that I am starting to see the same pattern of insufficient skills in commercial aviation. Maybe it's because the competence is dropping, maybe it's because we have managed to solve so many safety problems that pilot competence is now sailing up as the new prime element.
Or maybe I'm wrong.
The piloting performance of PPL holders, almost without exception, is training limited. They would perform better if they had more training. But what is the situation for ATPL holders? The current school of thought is that their performance, at least as far as flight safety is concerned, is not training limited, but "human factors limited". They do not make safety critical mistakes because they lack skills, but because they are human.
I am questioning whether that view represents the
whole truth; I think a large group of (or even most?) ATPL holders are actually training limited. If that is the case, more training would bring a significant safety benefit.
None of this will convince lomapaseo however, since I didn't bring any data. I wonder what type of data could actually prove or disprove the above reasoning? Any suggestions?
Furthermore, and this might interest busidriver: If pilots are training limited, saying they are incompetent is not the same as saying they are bad persons. It means their failings are due to their company, and by extension, the industry, failing to train them sufficiently. So I think it should be possible to discuss pilot competence without being stuck in the blame game.
Edit: Rainboe and I obviously crossed posts there!