[dingaling]

And until the early 1980s we had the Flight Engineer to keep an eye on the two pilots. They drove, he managed the aircraft and made sure they didn't bend it.

It was not unusual for the Flight Engineer to be senior to the drivers.

But the airline accountants highlighted the personnel cost of Flight Engineers and eliminated them, without ever considering the operational cost savings they provided. Even in mundane matters like resolving departure issues without having to wait for the on-call engineer.

"How long to fix it, eng?" became "What's wrong with it now? Back to the gate."

[shiggerino]

The same thing happened in shipping, getting rid of the radio officers, which unlike aviation is also compounded by very lax regulation.

Modern ships are filled with fancy electronics, and it's usually poorly designed with broken software, that few know fully how to operate and nobody knows how to fix. This problem is only going to increase as they rely more and more on automation, and it's not going to stop until there is an accident severe enough to prompt aviation-style regulation and safety methodology.