WillowRun 6-3:
I get that the union has its own investigatory team and that their effort is part of or co-ordinated with NTSB. And also that NTSB in general is very thorough. And while I truly appreciate the comtent of your post, yours did not answer a key part of my inquiries. Please allow me to clarify: I'm starting from a premise about the Quality, writ large, of the cumulative posts here. The content in-thread has: (1) depth (in the sense of sharp focus on detail and thoroughness so as to be comprehensive on any given substantive point);
(2) scope (in the sense of including all (or substantially all) the subject matters that make up the factual picture of this crash, and all the analytic or operational matters as well);
(3) veteran aviator perspective earned through vast accumulations of flight and PIC hours; and
(4) a robust give-and-take which demands participants to think before they post but then also -and this is key - continue thinking as the thread is spun.
Counselor:
As a pilot with more high school than college, along with 46 years of accident, incident and violation free, professional aviating from GA spam cans to airline heavies, I am of the opinion that much of what is happening in aviation these days is due to overthinking within the industry. We've lost track of the basics.
There's a lot of talk about details that don't matter in this thread. From my standpoint as a pilot, I manage the idiosyncracies of the airplane systems to make the approach down to mins, PAPI's insight, land. Some airplanes are easy, some are not. Deal with it.
You don't need a PhD to fly an airplane, and you don't need PhD level discussion to learn the facts of the accident. Quality, from my pilot's perspective, is being safe, efficient and reliable in the pursuit of my profession. We have high tech airplanes with hoop-jumping hiring requirements and yet we still have AF447, a 777 smacking into the sea wall at SFO on a perfect day, a 737 operated by essentially a short haul airline biffing a landing, and an Airbus from a company with a damn good safety record apparently having an issue with an NPA.
What to do? Having people with a passion for the profession who are detail oriented...and who have a talent for the job will go a long way towards improving safety. When I was hiring, 80% of the interview was the sim ride. These days, 80% of the qualifying interview is the chit-chat portion. People with practical experience and desire are dropped in the prioritizing below those with more education, ethnic background and gender. Diversity is not necessarily a good hiring priority when hiring pilots. I always practiced equality in that the best pilots got the job by demonstrating their abilities, regardless of how fancy their resumes were, or what color or flavor they were. Everyone deserves a shot at the game, but only the best sticks get hired...period. Call it quality control.
Focus on airplane capability (common sense, reliable, user-friendly design) and pilot capability/training, because whether things go to hell or not, the airplane/pilot team is the formula for success. All the other details are important, but the magenta line cockpit, increasing pilot minimum hours and the eyewash of fiddling with crewrest regulations doesn't resolve the core problem. I may be accused of over-simplifying the issue, but over-complicating the issue with minutiae isn't going to solve anything either.
At least that's my perspective as an old-school, pro pilot who has never dented aluminum or bruised a body. A dinosaur perhaps, but this dino is still alive and still successfully flying heavies and spam cans with a firm grasp on the basics.