Originally Posted by
Hompy
The big scandal in all this is that Airbus Helicopters or key members of their team got some important things very wrong early on.
They had no regard for the people involved in the accident and a disregard for their own responsibilities and I hope the people who made these errors or took the decisions get 'retrained'!
My other hope from this is that operators and commentators learn from the experience and take vested party's opinions with a certain degree of cynicism until the facts emerge.
These failures reflect the excessive deference given to the financial aspects of decisions by industry management at the expense of operational considerations.
It may be the consequence of mergers. When leaders become clerks in an enlarged enterprise, their measurable responsibility shrinks to the financial results. There is no good ongoing driver for product quality/safety, aspects which were central to decision making when the enterprise survival was dependent on those elements being properly weighted.
Perhaps in future, Airbus Industry will take a leaf from General Motors' book, they split management roles into a 'car guy' president and a 'finance guy' chairman. That allowed at least some engineering aspects to reach top management. Of course, considering GM went bankrupt, their solution has its critics.