Stephen, when you can show me how this verdict and the sentence has made Indonesian aviation safer then I'll entertain the rest of your posts.

I don't get this.
There are some who feel this accident was caused by the system and trying and jailing the pilot is not conducive to open disclosure of future incidents.

I agree the Indonesian system is flawed and needs a culture change to bring it into line with other countries and yes that culture change needs to start at the very top.

The system did not ignore all those warnings, did not land an aircraft at extremely high speed . The pilot did.

What action do those against trying the pilot suggest should be taken against someone who acts in such a negligent manner, comfort him and say "it's OK it wasn't your fault!"

I've tried to resist posting in this topic on past experiences...but i have to.

The Indonesian system is deeply, deeply, deeply flawed. Make no mistake that i believe the contrary. However...

To those who believe the pilot should not be imprisoned on the premise it doesn't improve the situation..how do you know it doesn't? How do you know that other pilots will be more careful in the future?

And if one of your family members (or someone as close to you) was killed in this incident, would you not be after the most severe gaol sentence you could get? Or would you still be caring about the overall picture?

Let me tell you, it would be the former.

Edit - Removed as I'm just restating what I said before.

As far as I'm aware this case was not about Indonesian avaition. It was about a pilot who did everything wrong, destroyed an aircraft and killed people. It has as a by product increased the safety of aviation world wide by removing a very dangerous person from the cockpit. But there are those who seem to think this unfair.

So I'll ask for the FOURTH time, exactly how are the responsibiities of car drivers and pilots different?

Give us an answer that can help us understand your viewpoint. Please. Are you even a pilot? Is there any justification for your viewpoint?

Surley the pilot is not the only one with their actions being scrutinised here. I have not read into any of this discussion, but from what I can gather the media is pointing the finger squarely at the pilot, and so is anyone who pays attention to that.

In my line of work, If i made a terrible mistake that jeopardised the lives of passengers, I would be held accountable. However, an investigation would also be carried out into how I was trained, the working conditions and any other factors that affect my ability to work. If any problems were found there, then action would be taken against those parties as well.

I do not think anyone here is questioning that the pilot should not be punished, and I believe a gaol term is a fair punishment. His command decisions that day can hardly be considered normal as per his training. However I do not think that this investigation has stopped there, questions must linked to the flight crew's training, why did the First Officer not take over after repeatedly asking the Captain to abort the landing for instance?

Just answering this now so Montague can answer your other questions, because i want to know the asnwers, but...

Its pretty irrelevant if he is a pilot or not, and his viewpoint is his viewpoint, he can believe what he wants.

Stephen,
Let's step back a bit and look at it from a wider perspective. What you suggest is a good start, from an employee level. But this 'culture' thing is deeply ingrained within any company. Clearly it's the culture that needs changing. I agree with your suggestion of individual employees refusing to take on dangerous tasks, for example, as one way to attempt to change the culture. But it needs to start higher than that - as I wrote earlier, 'from the top, down'.
The first step in any type of problem solving is identifying the problem. My biggest issue with criminal prosecutions of people like Captain Komar is that because people see that 'someone has been punished', they assume the case is closed. The danger is that the real reason for unsafe practices - something at a deeper company level - may be missed, because 'it has been dealt with', ie someone has been punished. So just sending this bloke to prison won't achieve anything if the real issues remain unidentified.

They're not. But as a private car driver you are not affected by company culture, which is where I'd wager the real issues lie in this case. I do not believe that car drivers are relevant to the discussion at hand.

Stephen.

Please?

Rhys,
Not here it wouldn't. If I were in the situation you suggest, I would not want a similar accident to happen again - that way my family member would not have died in vain. By 'similar accident' here I'm not necessarily referring to a high-speed overrun - similar in this context is an accident resulting from similar issues in the organisation (for example the 'save face' thing). If there are as you have acknowledged flaws in the system, then I would want those systemic issues solved before anyone is jumped on as a scapegoat. The 'scapegoat' thing appeals to many people necause it appears that 'something has been done' to fix a situation. But has it really made a difference, has it really acheived anything, if the same systemic flaws that led to an accident are left there to lie dormant waiting for the next set of holes in the swiss cheese to line up? I don't think so.

Adam,
So you believe Captain Komar should have been left to continue his career or did you have some other sanction in mind?
I am still troubled by those that feel he is above any form of punishment when despite the aviation culture he was trained in he truly screwed up.
He was obviously performing outside the standards of even the Indonesian industry otherwise the airports there would be surround by the burning hulks of the daily airliner crashes.
Yes fix the culture but also punish those that do wrong and he did.

Read my posts again Chris. I have not said outright that Captain Komar should not be punished. My issue is with the finger being pointed squarely at just one man.

The modern understanding of aviation accidents is that they are the ultimate conclusion to a long and usually complicated chain of events. Many factors go together to create that chain of events, and eventually the accident itself. It's never solely the fault of one person.

Sure, send him to jail. But fix the wider problems too. Otherwise aviation is no safer for it and you have ultimately achieved nothing.