Originally Posted by DCA-SEA
I'm pretty sure that pilot error is still the single most frequent cause of accidents, however.
Sortof. There certainly are some cases of egregious pilot error. The 1994 Aeroflot A310 crash where the pilot let his son fly pops into my mind frequently when pilot error is mentioned.
Then there are airplane design flaws that easily allow for pilot error to go unnoticed and unchecked, like the 1992 Air Inter A320 crash where the pilot entered a descent rate of 3.300 feet per minute instead of 3.3 degrees - the screens were extraordinarily similar, and have since been modified.