For those who wish to assign blame.
The tenacious retention of ‘pilot error’ as an accident ‘cause factor’ by governmental agencies, equipment manufacturers and airline management, and even by pilot unions indirectly, is a subtle manifestation of the apparently natural human inclination to narrow the responsibility for tragic events that receive wide public attention. If the responsibility can be isolated to the momentary defection of a single individual, the captain in command, then other members of the aviation community remain untarnished. The unions briefly acknowledge the inescapable conclusion that pilots can make errors and thereby gain a few bargaining points with management for the future.
Everyone else, including other crew members, remains clean. The airline accepts the inevitable financial liability for losses but escapes blame for inadequate training programmes or procedural indoctrination. Equipment manufacturers avoid product liability for faulty design,. Regulatory agencies are not criticised for approving an unsafe operation, failing to invoke obviously needed precautionary restrictions, or, worse yet, contributing directly by injudicious control or unsafe clearance authorisations. Only the pilot who made the ‘error’ and his family suffer, and their suffering may be assuaged by a liberal pension in exchange for his quiet early retirement – in the event that he was fortunate enough to survive the accident. Stanley Roscoe, 1980
Accidents do not occur in isolation, they are made up of many slices of Swiss cheese, and holding each of those slices is an individual, department or organisation. Any one of those slices is able to break the chain and prevent an accident occurring. Had the "Ops Flash" been used as intended, for example, may have gone a long way to doing just that.
Seeking blame is for ambulance chasers and lawyers, not for anyone who seeks the reasons why and how to prevent a recurrence.
Know what EGPWS stands for and why it was invented? –
Even
Good
People
Will make an error
Someday
The operating crew are the last line of defence for every ones mistakes.