Most of the post war crashes were in my view down to the change to new materials like DTD683 and the design strategy used by UK/US A/c designers, that of 'safe-life'. These shortcomings were finally nailed down in 1956 with a
paper in the Journal of the Institute of Metals by a group of Birmingham metallurgists and in a talk given to the RAeS by a Lockheed engineer
http://www.flightglobal.com/, the former condemning the materials and the latter condemning the design strategy and the materials. A double whammy.
The Meteor crashes and the infamous dive of death can be attributable to an error in the design of the tail structure where failure due to fatigue in the rivet holes holding the skin to the airframe would mean a dramatic reduction in the structural strength of the tail, leading to failure of the tail and uncontrollable dives.
There is a book "Arms Economics and British Strategy" by Emeritus Professor of History George Pedden at Sterling University that has a quote on Chp 6 page 284 from a memo sent by Chancellor Macmillan in 1955-56 to PM Eden
"... When the story of the aeroplanes finally comes out, it will be the greatest tragedy, if not scandal in our history"
That's quite a thing to say in a private memo, I think it is time for the "story of the aeroplanes" to come out, the crews that lost their lives in these incidents deserve the truth being told. They lost their lives largely because of the failure of the A/c industry to build safe A/c due to the huge political pressures being placed upon them, in a similar way to the causes of the 1957 Winscale fire .
The loss of life in RAF crews during the early post war period is staggering with losses reaching a high of over 300 killed in 1954. Post 1956 when the problems with both the materials and design strategy were acknowledged the numbers begin to drop. While it's difficult to say exactly why the numbers begin to fall clearly the revelations of 1956 played a role, all safe-life designs were either rebuilt or scrapped starting in 1956, The Valiant being the single exception to this scrap or rebuild strategy.
Thanks to John Blakeley for the data from "Broken Wings" (I think) There is a graph with a similar profile taken from Flight Magazine in the 1970's when there was a campaign to get the MOD/RAF to just release the figures. You can see the effects of the post war demob and then a steady climb to '54-'55. There was a reduction in flying hours in an effort to stem the tide, but it was the change to safer materials and a new 'fail-safe' design philosophy that really made the difference.
So while I agree with Duffer that it would be unlikely for there to be a review of XD864 (the AIB are still passing the buck even 50 years down the line and won't even comment on the BoI's findings), the "story of the aeroplanes" should be told warts and all. The truth is that up to 1956 all UK and US A/c designs were inherently unsafe if they used the new alloys (like DTD683) and were designed to the so called 'safe life' strategy.