Dale Harris
Dale, just re-read your comment re the accident, and I respectfully disagree.
Do not under estimate the link that fatigue may place in the chain of an accident. As an experienced aviation person such as yourself, you would have no doubt read that every accident results as a chain of events, some longer than others, and if any link of the chain was missing, tragedy was avoided.
Now, with respect to the Canada crash, whilst I do not know anything specific about it, fatigue could have been a cause of the accident. The crew, perhaps being excessively fatiuged, may have elected to take a short cut to save time as they were sick and tired of being in the cockpit and wanted to get out and home. Their attention spans, ability to follow written checklists and tolerances of flight may have also been compromised due to fatigue.
I for one have noticed a degradation in my flying procedures, and tolerances when I have (legally) operated well beyond CAO 48. Generally is was a small amount of apathy, and missing checks like fuel pumps off after take-off, reduced vigilance and tolereance on climbing speeds, and forgetting things like position reports. Now these might seem insiginificant but they could be a link in a chain of events. It took a large amount of self discipline to recognise and correct these events.
If I flew an unauthorised GPS letdown into somewhere (which I do not, and do not advocate!) and my attention span was shortened due fatigue, then a CFIT accident could result. Unprofessionalism as a pilot may get blamed, however, if that pilot was not fatigued, then he would be alive today.
There is an excellent article on the insidious nature of fatigue in the last edition of Air and Space Magazine.