Talking about the BHX incident, I've just read the AAIB report (
duplicate link) and have very mixed feelings about it.
Yes, there were errors made by the pilot but IMHO the investigation didn't pull up anything reckless or totally negligent, just the usual causal chain of small events and circumstances that all contributed towards the eventual outcome.
There are four safety recommendations in the report, all aimed squarely at NATS, BHX airport and the CAA, not our unfortunate pilot. The AAIB came up with several possible reasons why he might have had difficulty seeing the aircraft holding on the runway short of the displaced threshold, so you have to assume that he *didn't* see it, for one or more of the above reasons.
There is a lot of ambiguity surrounding radio failure procedures in the UK (and the rest of the world), which is touched on in the report itself. Do not underestimate how much a "simple" failure like losing comms can add to the workload of flying an approach, especially a last-minute non-precision one. Things that seem blindingly obviously in retrospect are very easily missed.
All-in-all, I think he was a bit hard done by. He was a company Chairman, so maybe this was a sort of "means tested fine"...