> The finger pointing at the dead pilots is repulsive, but not unanticipated. The legal implications are enormous, and if the basic design of the tail is found to be inadequate, the entire Airbus consortium is at risk (it is my understanding that the entire Airbus family have vertical stabs with similar design/material).<
Caution is urged in being too one sided in defense of one's fellow pilots and assigning of cause to another side.
Of course the issue is neither blame nor liability, but rather one of preventing further accidents by identifying and applying corrective actions.
From what I have gathered, so far, the regulated design standards for *ALL* manufacturers do not provide sufficient margin for what is believed were the actions of this crew.
Either you change the regulations and impact all the worlld's fleets of aircraft or you alter the training by which pilots fly.
I suspect that the majority will select the latter.
My gut feeling is that the FAA/JAA will revisit the margins in the design of aircraft for this type of event in the future designs and that the *ALL* perators will revisit their training syllabus.
I just don't see how the informed public will judge the pilots as the cause and then walk away.