Earlier quoted context omitted.
Weird to see such a strongly held belief of not blaming people abandoned so quickly. It's pretty standard to blame the pilots, as we know there is a Swiss cheese model for statistical analysis of risk and from my vantage point opening such large holes in the MCAS layer with the expectation that events are caught at the pilot layer is inadequate. That not all events are caught at the pilot layer is to be expected. Edi…
Finding the source of the error is not the same thing as meting out punishment. I am not aware of any pilot being criminally charged for making a terrible mistake. Though their careers are usually ended by it. That seems fair to me. An engineer at Boeing who could not be relied on will also find his career shunted to working on non-critical stuff. That's fair as well. > That not all events are caught at the pilot lay…
I don't trust Boeing and haven't for several decades so while I agree in theory an automated system could fly aircraft with a great deal of reliability I do not trust Boeing to be able to deliver that reliability. I like the idea that someone educated in the safety of the aircraft is up in the airplane with me sharing in the risk of flying even if all they are doing is babysitting a computerized system.
Most of my knowledge of Boeing is from engineers that used to work there and complained bitterly about the degradation of engineering safety culture. And sure, perhaps flying is safer than it has ever been, I think that's more down to improvements in technology than the culture of safety. Unfortunately while technology generally improves it's hard to say the same thing about culture. In general I'm upset that flying is less safe than it could have been.