I don't know any of the players in this scenario, and only know what has been published about the incident, however, I do have a bit of training in human activity.
I think the conclusion that the buck stops with the PIC, fullstop ...although technically correct, is, in fact, too simplistic an assessment.
It makes us feel good. Someone is to blame. It makes CASA feel good. Someone is to blame.
The reality is ... no one intentionally makes the wrong decision. Fullstop.
The PIC did not say ... I'm going to stuff this up and get us all in the ****!
We ALWAYS make the right decision ... based on what we believe and have been taught.
However, what we BELIEVE to be true and what we have been TAUGHT, may be incorrect. If that happens, we are open to making decisions that the majority of others believe to be wrong... as, apparently, is the case here.
What we need to do is find out why the PIC believed such and such to be the case or was taught such and such... which led him to his decisions.
And to take it further, the term TAUGHT is very broad. We are taught by teachers, our peers, our Employers, the media, the Government, our friends, our parents and our siblings.
Just because CASA Regulations may attempt to TEACH a certain belief ... doesn't mean that the multitude of other sources are automatically negated. We aren't that clever.
If we are really serious about stopping PIC bad decisions, we need to either:
- Stop all outside sources having any effect on our learning processes; OR
- Accept that we have competing learning sources and work towards ways of more significantly empahsising "correct" sources
The bottom line, for me, is that we will never be able to remove all the competing "incorrect" learning sources. We are, after all, only frail human beings.