barit2;
Are you telling me that safety statistics today are WORSE than during the Carter administration?
No, and that's not what I said. I said fatal accident rates have leveled off. Some may call that "worse" because the expectation was and is that the downward trend would continue. I think it is important to look beyond a graph, at the nature of accidents.
But to blame it all on deregulation seems to miss the target
Well, that assumes there is "the" target and of course there isn't just one, there are many such "targets". It's not a trivial, "semantic" point. I am not "blaming it all on deregulation", I am exploring original sources and looking for patterns. Like I stated, it is too complicated a discussion for thread material but it follows on what many here have sensed and stated.
I sensed the idea might be misunderstood within this context so I probably should delete the post. But to focus on single cause/single target can, I think, miss ways of solving the problem, which is, as stated, Loss of Control and CFIT which has antecedents far beyond the cockpit as well as ground services.
Ex Cargo Clown opened what I thought was an interesting and valid assessment of the overall state of our industry - traditional expertise and experience is leaving the industry, and parsimony mistaken for "responsible economic behaviours" is coming home to roost in unexpected ways which have yet to be recognized and dealt with. Safety systems are not like PFM boxes which one plugs in to fix a problem, (no slight intended; I know you know this...). I acknowledged that such a rabbit trail was a long way from the thread's topic, which was intended as a signal asking for forebearance while the discussion unfolded.
Hope this helps!
Cheers,
PJ2