Right on, DickyBaby
The problem with QA in general is that they will look for any hole in the swiss cheese (including mouse teeth marks...) - "but if this hadn't happened, then that wouldn't have happened" etc. etc. We could draw the conclusion that 99% of incidents occur to aircraft while airborne, therefore that is a contributory factor.
Often incidents simply occur because somebody makes a mistake. We have now gone to the other extreme where there is a need to spread the contributing factors to minimise the culpability on any one individual or organisation. Not to say that there isn't real value in identifying real contributory factors (e.g. the controller's attention was distracted from separating aircraft because he/she was concerned about the direct tracking policy and its implications on the overall traffic picture
) when they are there.
Buck passing if you ask me.
