I vividly remember seeing some of the trial of a poor BA captain who had made a couple of mistakes going around from an autoland approach that didn't stabilise. The talk at the time was that the main reason why he was prosecuted was because the AAIB had its hands full with Kegworth and couldn't spare any resources to investigate the incident properly, so it used the criminal process instead. Even if that wasn't true, I've always thought it was outrageous overkill when you consider what he'd actually done and in what circumstances. I'm sure that many here will know and remember the details much better than I, although I was shocked when an already sorry tale ended tragically.
Which leads me to ask, do people here think that there is any room for the criminal process when things go badly wrong? I'm thinking about pilots who, for example, fly when they know they've drunk too much too recently. Or pilots who deliberately adopt unsafe non-standard practices, perhaps over the objections of other members of the crew, because they think they know better. Would immunity from prosecution really be a good thing?
I agree, though, that the trend towards ready resort to the criminal process is deplorable, especially when most crew errors are made by people keenly aware that they are likely to be the first at the scene of any accident, and when the consequences of any error are unlikely to be directly proportional to the gravity of the error. Is too much of this driven by headline- or vote-seeking prosecutors? Too much by the perceived need in some places to pander to media pressure? Is there an argument for ICAO to intervene on a worldwide basis to take prosecution decisions out of the hands of non-aviation authorities, to try to ensure that criminal investigations are only launched at the suggestion of accident investigators who are aware of the consequent detriment to the investigation process?