The frustrating thing for me, having flown several sectors as PAX on one-to-die circa 2006 was at the time there was no offical warning mechanism whatsoever about the safety of this airline.
I remember reading some reports on PPrune BEFORE the incident 2007 which changed my choice of airline (hello Air Asia).
So my question - short of whistle blowers on PPrune how should the layman determine if an airline is "safe" ?