Watching Air Crash investigations last night. Oh dear, talk about classic swiss cheese effect. For anyone interested this was the one about the Argentinian disaster Lapa airways where a 737 atempted to abort takeoff way too late beyond V1 and promptly shot through the end fence of the runway across a main road into a gas station which of course exploded, i think about 37 souls survived, both pilots killed.
What was shocking after it became evident it failed due to a simple oversight where the crew and hostess nattered away about crap during the pre fight checklist. They forget to even mention the flaps position check and then forget to extend flaps for takeoff. The warning light bulb for this missing config had failed. However as they taxi'd for takeoff an audbile alarm was clearly heard on flight recorder, even the co-pilot questioning 'what's it making that noise for?' they ignored it, they proceed to try and take off and of course the rest is history. Turns out the captain had a checkered history and the Airline was expanding rapid and short on captains so he slipped through the net!
But wow, how blase do you have to be on take off to ignore the planes alarms !!! How alarming.