I'm not sure what your point is here.....a woman died while flying a plane so they shouldn't be in combat roles?
Or, since the article mentions that the crash was probably due to pilot error, are you suggesting that women aren't capable of serving in these roles so we shouldn't let women try?
There is a lot more to the Tomcat crashes with female pilots than is popularly discussed. The percentage of female pilot crashes in this jet are off the charts when compared to men on a per hour flown basis. It was so bad the men REO's eventually refused to fly with any female pilots in the Tomcat. There are many reasons for this, and some of them are political, and others are logistical in nature.
If a woman meets ALL, the proficiency standards for men in a particular MOS, there are only a few things that should exclude her from being treated equally. The largest of which is the environment. If the job requires an expeditionary environment, she should be excluded. When women can not bathe and or shower every other day, too many are lost to urinary tract infections and bladder infections, and once those set in, she is useless to the mission. The other environments include those that there are significant pressure changes....UDT, Combat Diver, S.E.A.L. teams, Halo/HaHo type of work. This is because of differences in gas absorption and discharge rates of female tissues. Since SOF forces often include one or more of the above activities and environments, females are excluded. The top 5 percent of females in DOD have the athletic ability and mental capacity to be above the mean performance of men in many MOS's. These women should not be discriminated against unless there are specific problems where bottom line performance is actually affected.