One question that should be asked in the dissection of this catastrophe is whether the for-profit (or at least 'no-loss') oriented goals of Skyguide caused fewer people to be applied to the ATC watch than would have happened if a Federal bureau were running the shift.
The growing trend toward assigning final responsibility for national priorities to Non-Government Organizations in nations around the world is worrisome if the approach leads to cost-cutting in the wrong corners.
Having a supervisor on that ATC shift would cost well under 200K Sfr per annum....adding a different perspective and another set of ears and eyes. The settlement costs will undoubtedly be more than 300 million Sfr, suggesting that more than a thousand years of the third-man's time would have been comparably cost efficient.
I cannot help but think that if the Eidgenossiches Luftamt were running the operation, a supervisor would have been there - as a matter of course - to help out, and those children, the crews, and others onboard would be alive right now. Maybe these NGO's with their cute marketing names and highly artistic logos and politically padded managing boards are not such a good deal, after all.....
Last edited by arcniz; 6th Jul 2002 at 07:46.