Organfreak;
I'm afraid that PJ2 may be right, that this will not be addressed. If it's not, I'm not going flying anymore.
I believe that the circumstances which built and delineated the wider context for AF447 and other accidents were at least burnished in the historical and the current political economy.
The name, “neoliberal”really doesn’t describe it anymore but merely describes the changes in the “arrangements”between private corporate interests and governments of western countries slowly awakening to a post-war, post-Keynesian world.
This doesn’t mean it’s all going to 'h' in a handbasket and that we should avoid all flying...not at all. Our highest risks by far, are the cab or car rides to the airport.
Agree or no, Kahneman has some interesting things to say about making such assessments; - I think the book is worth at least an examination.
Within a troubling political economy there are many more successes than failures if we are in the discourse of business and technology which counts multi-trillion dollar economies as "successful", (...and if we are in the discourse of ecology and livable systems, the present arrangements are inhumane, but...another thread).
"Success" within a troublesome mainstream doesn’t mean outcomes such as those being discussed here are acceptableand should be tolerated because of the flim-flam notion that the good fortunes of the unbelievably, privately wealthy will trickle down upon the masses if we just let greed have its way. These are social and organizational issues which profit renders invisible or at least inconvenient. Inconvenient truths in the safety data are almost universally unwelcome if fixing the problems revealed in the data is going to increase costs. That must change. Put voice and video recorders in board rooms for a start.
I think there are millions of innocent victims in such social systems as governed by the present rules of economic engagement which are mostly invisible to all. Here, with AF447, tragically, sadly, the two F/Os are in a scintillatingly-harsh spotlight which could shine on any one of us at any moment in circumstances far removed from our own making.
If this phenomenon isn’t understood for whatit is, both politics and the law will continue the trend to find out who to blame and then crucify individuals at the pointy end.
If we are looking for the pattern that connects all this, failing to comprehend the true sources of this accident and others like it, guarantees repetition until such outcomes are no longer tolerable to the very system which fostered them.
This does not excuse the absence of fundamental and trained responses designed to maintain cockpit order and discipline, as well as to deal with mere abnormalities via procedures considered quietly, between many experts at their desks and then tried over and over in simulators before making it into the AOM. Making one's own responses up and then acting out of instinct as opposed recalling one’s SOP and CRM training is inexcusable for a professional airline pilot, but truly, the sources of these errors do not entirely originate within individual pilots no matter who they could have been.
I hope the BEA, mindful of the legal cases pending, are able to strike a fine balance in these two very large and significant themes.