Safety is a ..... what?
I liked what Alf wrote in 253. It helped my thought process on this 'event' so that it reached two separate, but related, points. (1) Transport category aircraft aviators are highly reluctant to say, out loud, and especially outside of their own community, that one of their brethren screwed up. It's just plain not done that way. Screws-ups can be perceived, but not called-out and - sheesh! - certainly not amongst the general populace. Yes, sometimes a few words of scorn slip out (especially on a relatively obscure internet board), but culturally and attitudinally...you get my point. (2) Even where an aviator either screwed up - whether as a major or minor factor - there is OBVIOUSLY a need to unpack, disassemble, dissect, unravel, and just plain drill, drill, drill the event in question to find out exactly what took place. The fed regs cover the entire system (obviously) and there are many ways that variability between and among airports can equate to a situation where compliance with those regs was simply not enough. And: -- stuff changes. A perhaps 'not great' but hopefully pertinent example can be found in the posts about trees being cut down or trimmed in the context of the UPS crash at Birmingham. Seemed like the Joburg wing-clip posts touched on airside changes. Granted these are airport specific. But still illuminate the point that as the overall airport and airway system lurches, belches and coughs along its path of change, it is UNSAFE to rely on the FARs - or certificate holders' SOPs and flight manuals, as the ultimate. The ultimate yardstick in safety assurance, I mean. Respectfully, WillowRun 6-3.