Air travel is fundamentally an extraordinarily safe form of transport. But what travellers may not realise is the training standards for pilots and the regulatory oversight of carriers around the world is not uniform - and airlines from countries with weaker watchdogs can fly to and from Australia.

This was highlighted in a report into the crash of AirAsia Indonesia flight 8501. The carrier is a budget airline that flies to Bali from Perth and Darwin and is merging with long-haul arm Indonesia AirAsia X that flies to Bali from Sydney and Melbourne.

As is often the case, there was no single cause for the crash, which killed all 162 passengers and crew on board last December. Instead, there was a cascade of factors, starting with a recurring mechanical system malfunction that should have been fixed before the flight and ending with the stalled Airbus A320 crashed in the Java Sea instead of landing in Singapore. The very airframe involved had flown to Perth at least once, based on internet video shot by planespotters.

Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of the report involved the pilot training - or rather, the lack of it - by AirAsia Indonesia. After the autopilot was disengaged and the flight controls switched from the highly protective "normal law" to "alternate law", the aircraft rolled to the left by 54 degrees - beyond the 45 degree angle considered to exceed normal parameters, deeming it an "upset".