iceman50, your comments (#823) infer that pilots have to be infallible, be able to cope with all system related ‘traps’ or holes irrespective of the operational situation.
There is no need to defend either pilots or aircraft systems, they have been judged against standards set by others – training / certification. If with hindsight this judgement appears to be inadequate, then perhaps we should look at the processes of training / certification.
Training has been discussed, certification less so, thus my reference to part 25. I recommend that pilots read the advisory and explanatory material in 25 AMC 1302 to understand the balance required in system certification to avoid error and the difficulties of ‘quantifying’ human behaviour.
This accident could be an indication of weakness in the processes of training / certification. However, instead of considering the human or the machine independently, consider them in combination, as a unit which together are necessary for safe operation; thus one view of this accident is that the effectiveness of this combined unit was inadequate for the situation (human, aircraft, operations, training). We could question if the original balance of these factors made several years ago is still relevant in today’s increasingly complex operational environment, or with pilots under training, and the influence of modern commercial pressures, etc.
Fundamentally humans don’t change; they still err, more often influenced by the situation. Aircraft systems rarely change, but the situations in which both elements have to provide an adequate margin of safety do change. Thus look at the situation first, consider the combined human and the aircraft view of this, and then consider each element's view of each other - what was trained / taught, what was designed / certificated, and finally what assumptions were made about these to achieve a safety balance.
Although the NTSB’s recommendations are directed at specific issues – each side of the balance, the overall theme is to readjust the balance in order to maintain the required level of safety.