In it, he makes the very relevant point, that there is no such thing as “Pilot error”.

and

I´ve not read the accident report for this accident, and I can´t be bothered to read the journo version.

Well, despite being ‘a literary legend’, Ernest K Gann is wrong. If you’d bothered to read the ‘full’ version of the AAIB report before making any comments, you’d know that your version regarding the aircraft going off the side of the runway is incorrect… Well, as it whistled past my ear, it was certainly going off the end!

‘Pilot error’ is a catch all statement, and accounts for a good proportion of all aircraft incidents and until aircraft are flown by machines, that incident rate will continue. I agree there are always other factors involved that ultimately lead to an aircraft incident but remove any one of those factors and this would prevent that incident happening.

In my ever so humble opinion, omitting to select flap ‘down’ cannot be attirbuted to anybody other than the driver….:rolleyes: Why that omission was made, why the aircraft ‘almost’ got airborne, why the take off wasn’t aborted, yet travelled the whole length of the runway until it impacted a parked F-100, will never be known.