Human errors

After airline crashes, are we too quick to entirely equate "human error" with "pilot error"?

Last week, the FAA admitted its current system of notifying pilots about construction changes on airport runways and taxiways "may be inadequate." Comair 5191 pilots were notified in writing about construction changes at Lexington's airport before their Aug. 27 pre-dawn crash upon takeoff, but as for visuals, they had only 8-month-old, pre-construction airport maps to guide them.

Blue Grass Airport had offered to publish interim diagrams for the taxiway construction underway, but the FAA rejected that in favor of diagrams to show what the new runway area would look like -- after construction was completed. Because of a computer glitch at the publisher's, neither diagram reached the pilots by Aug. 27, when they took off from a too-short runway in the dark.

Can even good graphics overcome mystifying decisions?