Organfreak;
Dig the Hammond!
Re, "Still, I think my question reflects the feeling that some of us have, that blaming this purely on the pilots is an over-simplification."
Those who do this work and those who do flight safety work, investigative work, engineering work as well as human factors experts who write books on this and who may fly these aircraft or may not, know that this is not "just the pilots", and they know that there is no rational opportunity for a legitimate over-simplification of this accident. Most here who have engaged this dialogue already know this or have learned through careful and thoughtful readings of others' contributions. I believe that this is at least one thing which we can take from these eight or nine long threads.
All other crews encountering the variations of this abnormal survived. What is the difference that made a difference?
Their responses require as close an examination as possible so that a fine (as in fine-grained) appreciation of the context of crew-and-machine can begin to be seen which then becomes one context or template from which this accident may be examined and useful conclusions drawn regarding change. This means that airplane systems, procedures, as well as standards/training/checking regimes are all interwined in "the story" of this accident.
The notions of "blame" and "accountability" are legal and corporate terms which have nothing to do with safety processes and "finding out"; - they are not flight safety terms.
The notion of "responsibility" is quasi-investigative because it usefully enframes ways to ask questions, recognizing and beginning with the fact that there were the three crew members on board involved in the accident and that the aircraft was serviceable/flyable just prior to the event, (meaning, there was no catastrophic structural failure and the aircraft was controllable and was taken into and not brought out of a stall) and going from there regarding the trace of factors which may be counted as contributing to final outcomes.
This is a very long way from a view which indicts the PF/PM/Captain.
Last edited by PJ2; 14th Apr 2012 at 22:41.