Any of these errors can pass down the chain until they reach you, the flight crew. Once an
error originating from elsewhere in the chain reaches the crew in flight, it can pass no
further, the buck stops there. It stops in the cockpit where the flight crew must deal with
it.
The issue is not how we define human error, or even who is to blame, but rather how to
prevent errors and mitigate the effects of errors when they do occur. It is essential to
flight safety that we maintain a proper focus on how flight crews might recognise and
interrupt the hazardous sequence of events that precedes a mishap. Hence the concept
of the Error Chain