In article Nyal Williams writes:

On reflection, I believe we would all want pilot error to account for 100%
of the accidents. This would remove those accidents attributable to
equipment flaws and would make flying that much safer.

And we blame pilot error when a preflight misses a part about to come
apart.

We blame lots of things on pilot error. The FAA seems to like to do
that, and we go along with it because it allows us to remind ourselves
that we are better, and we would not make those mistakes.

The folks who have had "pilot error" accidents almost certainly were
certain of the same thing.

I apologize (slightly) for putting this in .soaring, because it also
applies to powered flight. It also applies to driving. We think that
we are not going to make the same mistake. We become comfortable with
our new safety and that comfort leads to carelessness.


At 18:38 30 June 2008, Bill Daniels wrote:

"If you can avoid the really stupid mistakes, what's left is
manageable."

In many things this is probably true. In the air, there are too
many exceptions.

Alan