You wrote:
>it will certainly be of importance to AA and it may be of importance if>they
find generic ingredients for the rest of us. What is important is>to
recognise that these were trained professionals who got into a>situation that
others could easily get into.
I agree completely. That is the value of the accident - its' generic lessons.
Crews lose SA every day, but the conditions are good enough to not lead to an
accident.
>Experience is recognising the same mistake the next time you make it. We
>gain cheap, easy, risk-free experience by reading of other
people's>unfortunate experiences and from that we can perhaps recognise
the>accident chain as it starts to form the next time around.>Somebody once
pointed out cynically that it took a big accident to get>any significant
reform in safety issues.
I agree. Cali is THE accident for the 90's. It has complex, multiple lessons
well founded in the best research material. It serves as a way of talking
about otherwise sometimes boring material.
>The Cali accident may well be a 'classic' in focussing attention on
the>Human / FMS relationship in a fast moving environment just as KLM /
Pan>Am woke everybody up to HF in 1977.
That is my hope. It has so many lessons if people will pay attention.
>1996 has been a poor year as far as statistics are concerned but it
has>provided some rich examples from which we will all (hopefully) be able>to
draw on for the future - management, design engineer, administrator,>aircrew
and line maintenance alike.
You are most correct. It is the entire aviation safety defensive system that
needs to be looked at, not just the pilot error at Cali. Like Dryden, this
accident is a mystery wrapped in a puzzle surrounded by a fog. There is so
much misinformation on which people are basing operational and planning
decisions. The Reason model helps one tear apart the mystery to a deeper
level of understanding so we can plan a better aviation defensive system.
Thanks for caring and listening. All I wanted to say earlier is the aircraft
could have almost any logo painted on the tail. That puts all of us at risk
if we miss the Cali lessons.