The continuing learning curve from airliner failure

The military situation is almost invariably at the "sharp end" of technology where aircraft fly faster, have tighter design margins, heavier loads, more sophisticated software and maybe no pilot at all. Failure cause and effect is usually classified for security reasons, so we have to look at the civil airliner situation for an overview of what things can cause accidents. Here the international airline safety authorities, their national equivalents, the airline operators and the aircraft manufacturers all seek careful analyses of why and how things actually went wrong.