Cost versus safety

[ATCO for sale]

How many out there believe the oft repeated mantra that 'safety comes first' ?

There must be tales worth telling and CHIRPs worth sending on the real state of affairs.

[ATC Watcher]

Safety has a price. the FAA apparently put it at 20 Million $ per human life lost in a (very) confidential document that was mentionned during the TWA 800 crash investigation.. In other words, if a system is known to be faulty, and it will cost X Millions to fix, as long as the number of expected loss of life is predicted to remain below that figure , nothing is done.

[bill]

I think that the system, ie, the rules and procedures which we operate under are in general safe. The difficulty in the system is perhaps our own personal limits or our failure to recognise them and for various reasons our unwillingness to restrict or refuse extra traffic.
I realise that this is a bit of a generalisation but many incidents appear to have a causal factor of someone missing the obvious or making an error of judgement because that person has simply taken on to much at one time whether this be extra traffic or even a "normal" level of traffic when that person is not feeling 100% at that particular time. Unfortunately it appears that it is near impossible for people to admit to such failings or for those investigating incidents to discover them.