bookworm wrote:
When human error becomes a crime
Sidney W. A. Dekker
This has been around since CRM was made mandatory around Europe and beaten to death since then. It works in the same ideal world as Communism.
It seems to me the prospect of jail for making a stupid mistake is an artifact of European feudalism: the only thing you can take from a man who owns nothing and has no income is his liberty. and only the state can do it. No longer valid or reasonable in a modern society. Particularly so when the mistake almost killed the perpetrator too.
Timothy wrote:
No, it isn’t. They’re an independent unit within the Department for Transport. The Chief Inspector of Air Accidents reports directly to the Secretary of State for Transport.
The CAA is part of what it investigates.
But don’t let facts stand in the way of a good story. If it’s good enough for POTUS it’s good enough for us :-D
That is what it should be according to ICAO Annex 13. The very reason all the reports are public is to prevent reoccurences.
However, many countries, particularly in Europe, have long undermined Annex 13 massively. In many places these days, the TSB’s share everything they have with law enforcement and the CAA. Which makes their independence rather nonsensical.
Cobalt wrote:
Sorry, guys, but unless I missed something, all the “he should be prosecuted” guys want is revenge/retribution, on behalf of society
Very true indeed.
In today’s society there is no “bad luck”, no “accident” where all concerned are primarily victims. It is always a question of blame and guilt. Modern version of “hang them higher”. I’ve had a case like that in the circle of my friends recently where the aftermath of a mid air ended up by getting BOTH pilots convicted and fined heavily, which more or less ruins them. That despite the fact that the public report said that from the angle they did fly at each other, it was almost impossible for them to see each other. The final report did not give the judge the ammonition to make criminals out of these pilots, but something in the non-public data did.
Consequence for all those who know about this: The TSB’s can’t be treated as organisations to better aviation anymore by people involved in an accident. So instead of being up front and trying to help the investigation, more and more pilots will take to a unwritten law of omerta and just shut the hell up and not cooperate in any way with the TSB’s anymore. That is a big loss in safety, but at least the “hang them higher” fraction has something to gloat about.
Does the same logic apply to Francesco Schettino, David Duckenfield or builders whose employees are expected to take risks and then die?
Mooney_Driver wrote:
the “hang them higher” fraction has something to gloat about.
That’s the kind of statement that is designed to shut down debate by shaming, and is ironic in the context in which you are writing. You are happy to use the very tactics you are attacking.
Silvaire wrote:
and only the state can do it.
Luckily. The alternative is a society where citizens with a gun do it themselves. Like the Russian father whose child was killed in the Überlingen mid-air collision and who shot the unlucky controller who had caused the accident. That controller, by the way, was not sentenced to prison because of his mistake. I vastly prefer it the European way.
Timothy – is there not a difference between a scaffolder who deliberately, and therefore knowingly sets out to cut corners in circumstances where he has the time to do a “proper job” and more often than not for his own personal gain, and a motorist or a pilot who makes a split second decision perhaps having been over taken by events and it so happens to be the wrong decision, as wrong as the decision of a flight deck of pilots who didnt spot the signs of an iced up pitot static tube, and be it the motorist or pilot who had nothing to gain from the mistake they made. Forgive me for being personal but in your incident if you had killed a passenger where does that fall? As i understand it we sometimes all miss a gate, or think we are stable, or think we can just see the runway and in real life there are shades of grey. Not saying this was or wasnt the case here, just suggesting that we need to be totally satisfied the criteria are met and then, and only then, whether the judicial consequence is proportionate to the effect desired. I happen to think there are a few to many people criminalised or handed out unreasonable punishment that serve no purpose.
I think bookworm makes a very good point.
In fact the only reason i can think in this type of circumstance that a pilot would make this type of mistake deliberately is because they were showing off, thought they were better than and therefore beyond the regulations or didnt know the regulations. None of those would be an acceptable excuse for a pilot, but equally i dont think many pilots set out with any of these intentions.
what_next wrote:
The alternative is a society where citizens with a gun do it themselves. Like the Russian father whose child was killed in the Überlingen mid-air collision and who shot the unlucky controller who had caused the accident. That controller, by the way, was not sentenced to prison because of his mistake. I vastly prefer it the European way.
The alternative is the state pursuing criminal prosecutions where criminal activity actually exists, and allowing civil courts to do their job in creating justice where stupid mistakes were made. Using a gun anywhere in the world is criminal unless life is being threatened. Over dramatization is not helpful in making a point.
A while ago a military pilot operating near me lost an engine and attempted to make it back to base on one engine. A better decision given that he didn’t know the cause of the engine failure might have been to go to an alternate requiring no transit over houses, as his base did. Unfortunately he made the other choice, number two engine quit too, the plane came down on a house and killed the occupants. The man of the house (a Vietnamese immigrant) was at work, and his reaction was to say in essence that accidents happen. I saw that as very noble of him. I believe he did eventually get money from the military, after some dispute settled in civil court, but there was no venom between the family and the pilot, and obviously the pilot didn’t go to jail… because his actions weren’t criminal, just ill advised.
Silvaire – funny, in a small way i had the same experience that resulted in a fair amount of comment with a large number of pilots including examiners suggesting landing at the nearest airport was unreasonable because it so happened to be a large commercial airport. By the grace of God there we all go. On that occasion i was and still am happy with my devision. I hope i have the same good fortune next time not to tempt fate.
Even so these decisions can be tricky, how often does the poh and emergency checklist state land as soon as possible, not as soon as is convenient or less expensive?
Or with the best rescue services
Mooney_Driver wrote:
In today’s society there is no “bad luck”, no “accident” where all concerned are primarily victims. It is always a question of blame and guilt. Modern version of “hang them higher”.
We have the criminal court and the civil court. Making mistakes are not criminal acts, unless it’s done with (gross) negligence. You are not convicted because of the mistake, but because of the negligence. If the legal system is such that gross negligence simply is “not following the book”, then it’s not a legal system anymore, but a bureaucratic tyranny IMO, the kind that communism, referred to above, usually ends up in. If the western society ends up in what essentially is a the same thing, then it’s an equally dysfunctional ideal as communism. There is a tendency that in new laws and regulations, the “by the book” principle is used more and more, also for negligence in a criminal sense. The society is heading down the drains if that continues.
To protect innocent third party from the mistakes of others, we have the the civil court and insurance companies.
