Originally Posted by
G0ULI
An incident occured where many completely uninvolved people were killed or injured away from the air display area. There were a combination of factors that ultimately led to this tragedy, but the primary factor has to be that the pilot misjudged the maneouvre.
A large number of people had their lives irrevokably changed that day as a result of an incident that should have been avoidable. Whether criminal proceedings take place, or not, is a matter for the judiciary. What penalties might be imposed are again a matter for the judiciary. I am merely pointing out that the sentences imposed by our courts frequently do not directly reflect the case being considered but are intended to act as a deterrent to others who might be tempted to act in a similar manner, or avoid their responsibilities towards public safety. I would suggest corporate manslaughter charges are a distinct possibility in this particular incident.
I make no judgement as to the potential outcome but clearly there is a public demand that a price and compensation for the victims be paid. For that to happen, someone will have to be held responsible.
You can't deter humans from being fallible, it is a symptom of the human condition. You can put hard legal constraints around activities to make them safer, like making drink driving illegal, knowing that this mitigates the overall risk by reducing incidence of drunk driving which is a specific activity that increases risk significantly, but you really can't prosecute people for failures of perception or faulty decision making under pressure without setting flying safety back to the dark ages. If the pilot knowingly broke safety rules, that would be grounds for prosecution, conviction if you could prove it beyond reasonable doubt, civil liability on the balance of probabilities. If the pilot complied with all the rules but the maintainers & operators didn't, prosecute them and make an example of them, if the air show organiser broke the rules then prosecute them, but if everybody followed the rules, the rules themselves are clearly inadequate...