Airlines reputation online, passenger safety, future of air travel. Who responds to the public?

The recent aviation accident at the Barajas airport in Madrid where more than 150 travelers lost their lives has generated a heated conversation in the blogosphere. A search of Spanair in Google's Blog Search yields more than 450,000 results in various languages. There is much debate as to whether the airline should have grounded the aircraft and switched planes. According to many reports Spanair denied that they considered switching planes at any point in time. Many of the families of the victims have questioned Spanair's decision to let that airplane fly. Some reports indicate that many passengers wanted to leave the plane when the aircraft was on the tarmac and being checked for some technical glitch. Passengers were not allowed to leave.

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Should airlines allow passengers who demand to leave a taxied aircraft?
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Before this tragedy happened in Spain I met a group of four Spanish travelers (photo) whom I had met on my Canadamigos Social Network. Since we had been communicating online to help them plan their trip through Ontario and Quebec we agreed to meet in Toronto on their first day in Canada. They were supposed to arrive on a Saturday afternoon at around 3:30pm arriving on the new Air Canada Madrid - Toronto flight. To make a long post short, they did not arrive on time because there was a problem with the aircraft. They landed in Montreal and after many tense moments on the plane (which according to passengers smelled like something burning) when they and other passengers demanded that the airline switch planes they were allowed to leave and another flight was scheduled for Toronto. We finally met the next day after their sojourn in Niagara. It was at this time they told me of their adventure. A few days after their return to Madrid they learned of the Spanair tragedy. They wonder what could have happened if Air Canada hadn't switched aircrafts. They never got any detailed information as to what the real issue was with their flight. I did not see anything about this in the media. So who knows what really happened. In anycase the question we came up as travelers is how safe are airlines these days when they are under enormous financial pressures (e.g. Alitalia). Should governments (i.e. taxpayers) take over once more the management of airlines in order to better safeguard the safety of air travelers and to subsidize operations so air travel continues to be accessible to more people? (I know - an unpopular idea perhaps, but is it farfetched? - send a comment).

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Jaime