I agree that investigating the facilities and processes is a worthy aim. That said, outcome is the most important thing. And by my count, the U.S. hasn't had a major airline loss in a really long time. Can't even remember. There was a crash of a 777 on landing in sfo that killed a few people, but when was the last time before that? I can remember a plane crashing in November 2001. Not saying that was the last one, but they're infrequent enough that they're difficult to recall. When we were kids there was a crash every year, it seemed. We should never let up on vigilance, but the industry has never been safer. Full stop.
They died to be reincarnated as a meme. It's more than a bit fucked up that a meme is what triggered my memory of the event. I've tried at least nine sentence #2's in this paragraph, and they all flopped. (ah, finally, and I avoided making a relevant statement) I wish I had the capacity to remember and appreciate each human life's contributions to humanity. And the capacity to reconcile this postmortem romanticism with the pessimism I feel towards those still living....a crash of a 777 on landing in sfo that killed a few people...