Re Femanvate's question - did AF447 change enough to prevent it reoccuring?
When an accident is caused by a large number of negative factors coming together with tragic consequences, I don't believe there is any such thing as the 100% solution. Yes, some of those factors should be a straight forward fix - in particular the pitot tubes which were already a known issue - but those that are related to human behaviour are much more difficult. How do you gaurantee that no pilot will ever haul the nose up to an excessive attitude in response to a fairly simple fault? How do you impress it upon aircraft commanders that leaving the flight deck for a snooze as you are entering one of the most dangerous weather zones on the planet may not be the best idea? How do you ensure that every possible fault scenario has been thoroughly anticipated so that proper procedures and training can be put in place to allow pilots to deal with them effectively and safely? What can you put in place to give relatively inexperienced pilots enough reserve in the tank so that when a challenging situation is presented, their actions aren't detrimental to the result?
These are all very complex questions that don't offer simple solutions. So in other words, while we'd all like to think it can't happen again, how do we know that even if we've dealt with many of the contributing factors, that there aren't others hiding in the weeds, just waiting for the opportunity to strike? For all that we have advanced in aviation equipment, procedures and training, predicitive engineering is still an infant in this game.
Last edited by J.O.; 2nd Jul 2013 at 15:26.