@ PJ2
Thank you for your civil and thoughtful post. Very refreshing in the aftermath of the violent verbal assaults on a newb by some PPrune members.
It is comforting to know that people like you exist in the commercial pilot community, and that hopefully people like you constitute a majority of that community, rather than a majority of knee-jerk reactionaries, as some other members of PPrune have proven themselves to be.
My concern and approach are those of a layman: are there serious systemic problems with commercial aviation, for example poor flight crew training, overworked flight crews, frequent day/night shift rotations that affect the normal sleep cycles of flight crew, etc., that may underlie or be causal to the rash of recent fatal accidents involving large airplanes?
I'm sure you agree that these issues go well beyond the community of ATP rated pilots, and affect all of the flying public, as well as the people on the ground, for example the residents of Birmingham Alabama who live in close proximity to BHM.
And as in many close-knit work communities, is there a reluctance on the part of insiders to speak the truth within the community, let alone in public, about these issues, for fear of reprisals such as demotions, pay cuts, lay-offs, etc.?
Thanks again for your thoughtfulness.