It's not only a matter of pilot and training quality. You have to add aircraft design and industry regulation/oversight.
We all know about the shortcomings of big props in severe weather (ATR72 Q400). Was there ever a major grounding and redesign? No. As far as i know, the last major grounding was imposed on the DC10. Since then the industry has built up enough lobbying power to avoid such measures, even with huge design flaws. It is as if everyone involved prefers to save a couple of thousand jobs rather than 50 lives every now and then.
It seems as if the car industry is less cynical. Aided by consumer right groups and not to forget the fierce competition, they are more accountable and recalls are much more common.
Have you ever heard of a recall of licences given by specific academies or airlines? Again, no. Some of them deliver such a low standard and this is known right down to the regulators. Every now and then a small surgical and announced audit does not really deal with the problem. The amount of forged hours (that i have seen) must lead to the assumption that even licences may be forged (assumption) or at least more "bought" than aquired.
The sad part is that basically all insiders know about such flaws. But because everone is more or less tied up in the same circle, most are protecting their own job by simply looking the other way.
Complaining happens on anonymous forums, but as such can't lead to improvement.
The real blame lies with the regulating oversight. It's the body we pay with our taxes and is only here to do exactly this, oversight, and they fail miserably. Their own oversight, the ministry and ministers couldn't care less than their next election. To me it's the politics that fail, and politics, at least in our hemisphere, is the people, is us. So we deserve failure ...
Last edited by pool; 9th Feb 2010 at 02:55.