Just an aside, and to put some clarification towards the touchy subject of dealing with not only aircraft accidents themselves, but also when people you personally know are added into the mix. As a guy who has lost somewhere around a rough count of 40 people I've personally known in aircraft accidents, it never is easy when a new number gets added, but sadly you come to get used to it being simply how the dice roll in the game. When someone's number is up, it's up. For whatever reason(s). The grim reaper of aviation will come calling at a time and place of his choosing, without prejudice; and sometimes people or situations help narrow his list for that day. The thing to be cautious of, and this is something I had to watch out for early on and especially in any accident I was investigating, is not wanting to be brutally honest about personal factors with regards to an accident.....pilot error in particular....when it was someone I knew. But that brutal honesty does need to be there and can be done in a respectful way, because if it isn't, the the loss of life was truly for naught. And important lessons to be learned will be minimized or glossed over, due to a fear of judging the dead harshly; when it's not judgement, but rather simply acknowledgement.
In the case of 3701, items such as what management did or didn't do, or how the pilots were trained or not trained; all of these factors are wholly secondary. The fact remains that two pilots took a perfectly good aircraft with no problems, and turned it into a smoking hole in the ground. And they did so in performing a flight profile that there was zero operational need for, and one in which they freely placed themselves and the aircraft in. Regardless of any of the background secondary factors, which is all it is.....background; these guys were the ones at the controls, who were certified to be flying that plane, and who eventually put it into the dirt. In accident investigation, this causal factor of pilot error is known as "Overconfidence in Personal Ability - Pilot In Command [crew]."
Does any of this make these guys bad people? Of course not. Does it make any kind of slam on their character right or productive? Of course not. But did they exercise extremely poor airmanship and aeronautical decisionmaking for placing themselves in an area that there was no operational need to be? At the edge of an envelope with consequences that they neither appeared aware of nor made any proper planning for? All in an airplane that had no pre-existing mechanical problem that was contributory; and all in an environment that had no adverse factors that were contributory such as weather or the like? Yes to all. And that is what needs to be learned from. That's the only thing that will make the loss of life worth anything. And all of that starts with acknowledging, brutally and honestly, that the only thing that truly killed these guys at the end of the day, were their own actions....as well as inactions. No one likes to ever face that because of the negative perception(s) it brings on a personal level, but we'd only be fooling ourselves if we didn't face that and keep it separated from any and all personal perceptions.
