Peter Duniho wrote:

I admit, I don't have the statistics in front of me, but I suspect that
human error in the cockpit causes more accidents than human novelty recovers
from.

I doubt that anyone has good statistics. People investigating a accident in
which the pilots don't survive are (or at least were) likely to declare it
"pilot error" anytime they couldn't figure out what went wrong. And if the pilot
survives, he's probably going to try very hard to hide any mistakes he might
have made.

There's also the tendency of the NTSB to blame the pilot for *something*, even
if the basic cause was beyond anyone's control. If the engine fell off, one
"cause" of the accident is likely to be "failure to maintain adequate clearance
from terrain."

George Patterson
Give a person a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a person to
use the Internet and he won't bother you for weeks.