Regarding the Mitsubishi MU-2 and its now improved safety record and the argument of blame the airplane vs. blame the pilot. I think the thing that impacted me most about this article is that with better training and certification an airplane that was once considered dangerous can be considered safe and from that we conclude that, more training = safer pilots = safer airplane. I agree with McClellan's POV, but I don't agree with the methodology of how you get there. Why should it take the FAA to be involved to write safety standards for airplanes. The responsibility of safety should be on the manufacturers and you should not be allowed to purchase the airplane unless you can demonstrate that you are qualified to fly it. Instead of putting the burden on the buyer and the seller of the pr0duct we leave it up to the government and thus, the tax payers. Its just not fair to the 99% of Americans who do not fly and never will to have pay for a government agency to make sure an airplane is safe. I think if an airplane has a poor safety record then it should be grounded until the manufacturer can demonstrate that the people using its product are qualified to use it. If we let the pilots and the manufacturers off the hook and wait for government agencies to come in and save the day, 1. we are going to loose a lot of lives by the time they get involved and 2. it will come at a significant cost to people that have no relevance to the transaction. I agree with McClellan and I agree with the software development executive. I think planes should have much stricter regulations written about how to use them but I don't think the burden should fall on the government, it should fall on the airplane manufacturer and the pilots who is fly the plane.
