[jacquesm]

Yes, that's true in the general sense. But root causes are interesting because they are the things that can lead to insights that can help the lowest levels of engineering to become more robust. But at a higher level it is all about systems and the way parts of those systems interact, fault tolerance (massively important) and ensuring faults do not propagate beyond the systems they originate in. That's what can turn a small problem into a huge disaster. And without knowing the root cause you won't be able to track those proximate causes and do something about it. So RCA is a process, not a way to identify the single culprit. So this is more about the interpretation of the term RCA than about what RCA really does.