With the Castellet G IV accident as a case in point, what are the causes of pilot error. I believe the reason is Task induced complacency".
They left Istanbul Sabiha Gokcen at 0600 for Athens, from where they flew to Nice, departing there at 1256 for a five minute flight to Le Castellet. Assuming they rose at their hotel and hour be reporting at Sabiha Gokcen, they could have been on duty well in excess of nine hours. So when they took off from Nice, the job was done and a long days of work was over. They could now relax and look forward to well earned rest.
"Complacency is caused by the very things that should prevent accidents, factors like experience, training and knowledge contribute to complacency. Complacency makes crews skip hurriedly through checklists, fail to monitor instruments closely or utilize all navigational aids. It can cause a crew to use shortcuts and poor judgement and to resort to other malpractices that mean the difference between hazardous performance and professional performance."
Wiener, E.L. (1981). "Complacency: Is the term useful for air safety?" In Proceedings of the 26th Corporate Aviation Safety Seminar. Denver, CO: Flight Safety Foundation.
Fahlgren and Hagdahl defined complacency as "A mental state where an aviator acts, unaware of actual danger or deficiencies. He still has the capacity to act in a competent way - but for some reason, or another, this capacity is not activated. He has lost his guard without knowing it".
Fahlgren, G and Hagdahl, R. (1990). "Complacency" Proceedings of the 43rd Annual International Air Safety Seminar, Rome, Italy: Flight Safety Foundation.
At some time or another we all let our guard down, especially when we think the real hard work is done, it is in our nature after all.