I think I stated the conclusion poorly- from the examples that were shown, the situation was often ambiguous- i.e. the co-pilot didn't look up, see the plane approaching a mountain, mention it to the pilot (reading a magazine at the time) get brushed off... and leave it alone.
From what I saw, it was more a case of conflicting interpretations of information...with the junior officer acceding to a more experienced, and often respected senior officer- the Tenerife disaster in the canary islands was the fault of the guy who ran KLMs safety program, and was a legend w/in his community. His junior officer acceded to his judgement, and he and a bunch (~500) of other people were killed.
I have no idea if this sort of this is inovlved in the sub incidents- it sounds as though multiple people had to have blundered- but I don't know. I'd be interested in BNG or other submariners thoughts/opinions.