[LINK] Fwd: The Asiana SF accident - automation in aviation accidents, deference and poor pilot-pilot communications

Robin Whittle rw at firstpr.com.au
Thu Jul 11 18:15:33 AEST 2013


I found this 25 minute American Airlines lecture most interesting:

>   http://vimeo.com/29642656

There's a 2009 video interview:


http://edition.cnn.com/video/data/2.0/video/bestoftv/2013/07/10/lead-asiana-214-crash-korean-culture.cnn.html

with New Yorker write Malcolm Gladwell, who said:

  "The great majority of crashes are due to a breakdown in
   communication between the co-pilot and the pilot.

   Something comes up, a situation emerges, which requires those
   pilots to be in open and honest communication - and they fail
   to do that.

   One person withholds information, one person doesn't share,
   whatever."

He says that it is easier in some cultures than in others for a
subordinate to speak candidly, perhaps harshly, to a superior.  He says
that there is a high correlation between the degree to which a cultures
"power distance":

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_distance

(or "respect for power distance") and the rate of (commercial) plane
crashes.  His book "Outliers" apparently has a chapter on Korean
Airlines, which had a very bad safety record in the early 90s, but which
resolved these problems by brining in people with a very different
culture, to train the pilots, and by having the pilots communicate in
English, which he says is a non-hierarchical language.

Some discussion of Malcolm Gladwell's arguments as they relate to the
recent crash:


http://www.theatlanticwire.com/national/2013/07/malcolm-gladwells-cockpit-culture-theory-everywhere-after-asiana-crash/67058/

   - Robin








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