alt Hacker NewsBoth unsophisticated lay observers and capital/owners tend to fault operators ... for different reasons.
Accident studies and, in particular, books like _Normal Accidents_[1] push back on this assumptions:
"... It made the case for examining technological failures as the product of highly interacting systems, and highlighted organizational and management factors as the main causes of failures. Technological disasters could no longer be ascribed to isolated equipment malfunction, operator error, or acts of God."
It is well accepted - and I believe - that there were a multitude of operator errors during the Air France 447 flight but none of them were unpredictable or exotic and the system they were tasked with operating was poorly designed and unhelpfully hid layers of complexity that suddenly re-emerged during tremendous "production pressure".
But don't take my word for it - I appeal to authority[2]:
"Automation dependent pilots allowed their airplanes to get much closer to the edge of the envelope than they should have ..."[3].
or:
@ 14:15: "... we see automation dependent crews, lacking confidence in their own ability to fly an airplane are turning to ther autopilot ..."[4].
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normal_Accidents
[2] Captain Vanderburgh
[3] Children of Magenta: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTwB94yOrRQ