The Decoupling of Safety and Competence

[Colonel]

I struggle with this issue.

I presume that most people in aviation have at least some moderate
interest in safety - that is, not crashing, destroying airplanes, and killing
people, like this gem:

[url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_Alge ... l-76_crash]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_Alge ... l-76_crash[/url]

This in fact may not be true.  If you don't care about death in aviation,
please stop reading now, because what I say is of no interest to you.


Given that you have some interest in preventing injury or death in an
aircraft, is there any interest in learning [i]why[/i] aviation accidents occur?

Over many decades, I have learned that skill and knowledge in the
cockpit is how you prevent aviation accidents, but I sense that there
is some disagreement with (if not outright mocking of) this rather
old-fashioned idea, as it is viewed today.

When something goes horribly wrong in an airplane, I get the
impression that people think it is some random or inexplicable
event which could not have been prevented.  An act of God,
or something.

But, God did not design the aircraft.
God did not build the aircraft.
God did not maintain the aircraft.
God did not fly the aircraft.

So, I'm not sure what God really has to do with it.  People
designed, built, maintained and flew that aircraft, and something
went really wrong, for a lot of people to die.

[b]Do skill and competence really have a place in aviation any more?[/b]

Or are we just a bunch of monkeys reading "how to fly" and
"how to maintain" books, again written by the Gods?

I have really bizarre conversations with young people, that
convince me that they have a truly different aviation experience
and perspective than I do.  I will admit that I am a 20th century
dinosaur, and I [i]do not have a place[/i] in 21st century aviation.

[Chuck Ellsworth]

Not having an accident in an airplane is due to luck.


If your luck runs out then the accident is a learning experience.


That is how some of these people think.

[Colonel]

Another issue I wrestle with ...

People assume that regulatory compliance has the objective
of safety.  I will not mention, for example, an FTU near Toronto.

This is not the case.  Regulatory compliance is no guarantee
of safety, and is actually quite unimportant.  As long as the
process and politics is good, the paper is good. 

But [b]don't expect safety to be the end product[/b] of it.

Often, I struggle to achieve safety despite the paper.

This is of course a complete perversion - [i]the supposed
objective of all the paper is safety[/i] - but it is nearly
guaranteed as to be so obscured as to be forgotten.