I don't really understand what prosecuting the FO and putting him in jail would have accomplished.
Would it have prevented any future pilot error issues? Would it make the families of the victims really feel any better? Would it make flying any safer? What would be changed/accomplished?
The victims familes were compensated civilly. 45 passengers received $264 million in confidential settlements, an average of $5.9 million per passenger and one family received 7.1 million (in a separate lawsuit) . No amount of money however, can compensate for the loss of a loved one or bring them back or rid their families and friends of grief, pain and loss.
As for Polehinke, he endured many broken bones during the crash, including pelvis and several ribs, his right and left foot and face, fractured his spinal cord, suffered brain damage, a collapsed lung, had his leg amputated, has endured several surgeries, a lifetime of physical and emotional pain and has never been able to work again. He has to live with what he was partially responsible for. I would think that he has been paying for or punished every single day of his life and will continue to do so. Would putting him in a jail cell accomplish anything or make him really feel worse? I doubt it. Vengeance is a double edged sword. It does not accomplish what we hope that it will.
Humans, even highly proficient, skilled, experienced, trained, motivated professionals miss cues and make mistakes. It is also not just a matter of aspiring to higher standards. My personal standards always exceeded company and regulatory standards but that doesn't make me error proof. I have made some (albeit small, thus far, fortunately) errors and none of them would I consider to be "intentional." I have always found this disturbing/upsetting and then tried to mull over exactly why they occurred and how to improve my actions in the future. Complacency, is probably our largest enemy. An enemy that has to be fought against every single time we sit in front of a yoke. None of us are Sky Gods. Even the best, most experienced pilots that I have met and/or flown with over the decades, will readily admit that they too, have made errors/mistakes. It happens.
We can get into all sorts of discussions regarding incompetency versus a "mistake", what percent of the responsibility is with who, and all sorts of other semantics (legal and otherwise), but in the end, because we are human (which is not an excuse, it is a fact), mistakes will happen. Mostly, they are not tragic, but sometimes, they are. They happen with less frequency because of training, experience, safety features, etc. But they happen. No law, no amount of training, no finger pointing and no features built into modern aircraft will erase them all. If anyone believes that they are not capable of making mistakes/errors, they are foolish. Events can line up, progress and one bad judgement, one overlooked item, one lapse, may or may not cause an incident to spiral out of control fairly quickly.
What I guess I am trying to say here, is that we learn from our own mistakes and those of others by deep, complete and logical examination. We attempt every single day to be sharp, remain on our A game and deal with fatigue, physical issues of our surroundings, stress and so many other variables and issues, but we sometimes fail to be perfect. I would hope at some point, there is always room for redemption of some sort and understanding of the causes of bad events, and the entire circumstances, rather than just meted out punishment, which accomplishes nothing.
