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Old 7th April 2009, 06:48 PM
Stephen B Stephen B is offline
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Join Date: Oct 2008
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The way I see it, there are only two ways to mitigate/eradicate the risk of dangerous pressures being placed on employees to act in dangerous ways. The first is regulation by government. But in this capitalist society where the dollar is all too often the most important thing, effective and appropriate regulation can often be hard to come by.

Where there is no such regulation, the employees have to take a stand. There are various ways to do this, which can include going higher up the chain, going to the media, or simply refusing to undertake an unsafe activity.

If as has been suggested the pilot here was pressured to act in what has turned out to be a deadly way, then he should have taken action against it, up to and including refusing to fly the aircraft. And yes this could have cost him his job, which is a very big price for anyone. But now 21 other people have paid the price for him. And 21 families will continue to do so for the rest of their lives. Not to mention those injured and maimed.

This is the other side of the employees taking a stand. There is unfortunately always someone greedy or stupid enough to think they can get away with it. These are the people, such as potentially in this case that need to be removed from the equation.

If there are other factors that need to be investigated beyond those directly responsible for this crash, then someone needs to do it. They may even be a factor here, but this pilot deliberately chose and is solely responsible for his actions.
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