pilots on trial
Geoffrey Thomas has posted an erudite and provocative post which deserves better than some of the replies it recieved.
I hesitate to reply to someone like Old Phart who has written 26 posts in 19 days. I really don't have the time to compete on that level - and I'm retired!! A man causing death by dangerous driving has no intent to do that, no 'mens rea'. It's done out of stupidity or ignorance or arrogance or incompetence. And when any of these four (or others) are applied to a 'professional' who is experienced and fully trained then I am afraid that he or she could be culpable - they 'should have known better'. And Capt Stable stating that 'a jury of lay people won't understand anything about what goes on in aviation' negates the whole jury system. What about finance, tort, company law, criminal law etc? These can be equally and more complex and often need expert direction but only in extremely arcane circumstances should they be taken away from the normal legal system.
By the by, concerning the poor soul involved in the Penta Approach case, was it ever considered that it might have been a factor that the company regulations stated that if the cloud base was below 1,000 feet all approaches were to be made on autopilot, so this pilot was carrying out a procedure - manual ILS approach below 1,000 feet in cloud - which he had been specifically forbidden to practice outside of the simulator, because he didn't have access to automatic flight. Nothing ever fails to automatic so perhaps there should be more practice of manual flight to limits in poor weather. Just a thought.