Malcolm Gladwell On Culture and Airplane Crashes

theodp writes "While the Asiana Airlines Flight 214 pilots' lack of communication puzzles crash investigators, readers of author Malcolm Gladwell are likely having a deja vu moment. Back in 2008, Gladwell dedicated a whole chapter of his then-new book Outliers to Culture, Cockpit Communication and Plane Crashes (old YouTube interview). 'Korean Air had more plane crashes than almost any other airline in the world for a period at the end of the 1990s,' Gladwell explained in an interview. 'When we think of airline crashes, we think, Oh, they must have had old planes. They must have had badly trained pilots. No. What they were struggling with was a cultural legacy, that Korean culture is hierarchical. You are obliged to be deferential toward your elders and superiors in a way that would be unimaginable in the U.S.'"

Comments

I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[NixieBunny]

As an American, it made no sense to me that a person would consider that the respect towards their superior was worth more than the lives of two hundred people.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[gandhi_2]

That's because you are racist.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[TheDarkMaster]

Power do not work in a logical way.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[mooingyak]

That's because you are racist.

Generally this sort of statement tells me a lot more about you than it does about the person you're replying to.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[Anonymous Coward]

Woosh

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[gandhi_2]

I had a counter-argument???

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[MisterSquid]

As someone who is half Korean and was raised in an household where respect for one's elders was taught, I would not necessarily say the GP is expressing a racist opinion as much as an ethnocentric opinion.

Both racism and ethnocentrism can have negative effects, but ethnocentrism is not always coupled with hate.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[Hatta]

Undue respect for "superiors" is why 500,000 people died in Iraq. Why Edward Snowden is indicted for espionage while Obama remains unimpeached. Why we imprison more people than any other country in the world. Why we allow tens of thousands of our own citizens to die each year because they can't get insurance. Why we shut down an entire city for someone who caused an explosion that killed 3 people while someone who the very same week caused an explosion that killed 14 walks free. etc. etc.

America is not the bastion of independent thought we'd like it to be. It's better than Korea by a long shot, but there's much more progress we still need to make.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[Anonymous Coward]

That's because you're an American. Culture runs deep and strong.

Korean language changes based on the person you are addressing. When you're addressing an elder or superior, the fact that you use different words changes your thinking.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[luis_a_espinal]

I had a counter-argument???

Your answer/explanation amounts as such. The OP states that he does not see a reason/explanation for X (implying that such a reason does not exist). You reply by saying that he does not see it because of reason Y (in this case Y=u r racist, but that is beyond the point.) Reason Y implies then that there is a reason/explanation for X (a counter-argument to the OP's statement that there is none.)

It's an argumentative stretch from my part, I know. But it is quite appropriate to your decision to focus, quite conveniently, on the fact that I said "counter-argument" than on the more important fact of you pulling such a cheap and gratuitous race bait at the first opportunity for no apparent reason. Pathetic to say the least.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[abelenky17]

I don't believe it is because they *won't* contradict their superiors.
It is because they don't known *how* to contradict their superiors.

After a lifetime of cultural indoctrination of respect towards elders and superiors, when the time comes to speak up, how do you do it?
What do you say? Do you indicate by pointing or gesturing? Do you speak politely and slowly, or angrily and quickly? Maybe just grab the controls yourself?
When do you speak up? When you first spot trouble? when you're convinced your partner overlooked it? or when it is really approaching the last-second?

All of these little decisions are already ingrained into Americans. We know culturally how to speak up and raise an issue.
But to someone unaccustomed to them, it is a huge cognitive load, and leads to self-doubt and uncertainty.
I'm sure someone on that flight deck *wanted* to speak up, but was probably wondering what to say, when to say it, and how to say it.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[Patrick Bowman]

Do all the people replying here not realize that Gandhi_2 was joking? Let me spell it out. Gandhi_2 is making fun of our western tendency to be so hyper-sensitive to cultural issues that mentioning, or even noticing, that someone is from another culture or genetic group is likely to elicit a charge of racism from someone. The fact that that many people didn't even get it shows how accustomed we have become to hearing these charges.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[MisterSquid]

You're right that Confucianism is not the only ideology that inculcates hierarchical deferentiality. However, the types of behavior that prevail in hierarchies in the (general) US context are distinct from the deference to one's elders that prevails among Koreans (and Korean Americans) who have been raised with Confucian principles.

I can't speak to whether Confucianism contributed to any human error for Asiana Flight 214, but I do know that Confucianism will frequently allow poor judgements rendered by elder persons to carry over the (often unexpressed) better judgements of younger people.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[Bartles]

Both racism and ethnocentrism can have negative effects, but ethnocentrism is not always coupled with hate.

Apparently, blind adherence to the rule that age and wisdom are directly related can have negative affects as well.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[Anonymous Coward]

That joke isn't funny anymore.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[Anonymous Coward]

...as an Asian driver crashes into your post

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[Anonymous Coward]

As an American, it made no sense to me that a person would consider that the respect towards their superior was worth more than the lives of two hundred people.

The people in such situations do not think in this way. There is a way that things are done and that is all. If I suggested taking all money and distributing it evenly, you would say that that would be unfair and simply not the way thing are done. I could say that it makes no sense that one person's extreme wealth is more important than a million people's financial well-being. Yet that isn't how you conceive of such things, most likely, and you will reject this perspective. In just the same way these pilots reject the perspective on their situation that you are offering. Yes, the analogy is not perfect, but perhaps it will help you.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not a Western tendency, it's more an American tendency.

I remember one time driving through the Indian part of town in the UK with my American girlfriend and saying something about how they drive like they're still in Bombay as a car on the wrong side of the road barely missed us. Any local would have agreed since it was completely true, but she was absolutely shocked by my EVIL RACISM.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[gandhi_2]

I'd call it a human tendancy. But thanks just the same. (:

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a risk vs reward calculation, based on a low reward expectation due to an assumption of your superior's actual superiority.

That is, the subservient person is not thinking "If I politely tell my superior that he will should do X to save all our lives, I might save our lives and the worst that can happen is he will say no that won't work"

Instead it is "If I politely tell my boss that he should do X, he most likely has already thought of that and I will instead be wasting what tiny amount of time my powerful, brilliant, superior has to save my miserable, stupid life.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[mooingyak]

Do all the people replying here not realize that Gandhi_2 was joking? Let me spell it out. Gandhi_2 is making fun of our western tendency to be so hyper-sensitive to cultural issues that mentioning, or even noticing, that someone is from another culture or genetic group is likely to elicit a charge of racism from someone. The fact that that many people didn't even get it shows how accustomed we have become to hearing these charges.

I was one of the responders.

If he was joking, it went clean over my head. Still does, kind of. I mean, I understand what you're saying, but I just don't read it that way, even after you've explained it. And my comment went to +4, insightful in about 15 minutes so I'm not the only one.

And yes, if you're wondering, I do understand that I'm reinforcing your last sentence with my comment.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[nitehawk214]

Do all the people replying here not realize that Gandhi_2 was joking? Let me spell it out. Gandhi_2 is making fun of our western tendency to be so hyper-sensitive to cultural issues that mentioning, or even noticing, that someone is from another culture or genetic group is likely to elicit a charge of racism from someone. The fact that that many people didn't even get it shows how accustomed we have become to hearing these charges.

I think you and G2 are striking to the core of the issue in such a way that people just simply can't understand. Maybe it is being culturally insensitive, but sometimes cultures are wrong.

Some cultures place deference to elders above the safety of others. They are wrong.
Some cultures practice persecution of all minority or non-state religions. They are wrong.
Some cultures are anti-homosexual and racist. They are wrong.
Some cultures perform Honor Killings on family members that shame the family. They are wrong.
Some cultures mutilate girl's genitals in order to... make them... uhh, I am not sure why, but they do it. They are wrong.

Is it insensitive that i hold these beliefs? Maybe. But they are the ones that are wrong on these topics.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[fustakrakich]

Pathetic is your lack of a sense of humor.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[Hatta]

Obama has such a political following and fanatical supporters that he could literally get away with murder

He already has.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[Anonymous Coward]

I had a counter-argument???

Your answer/explanation amounts as such. The OP states that he does not see a reason/explanation for X (implying that such a reason does not exist). You reply by saying that he does not see it because of reason Y (in this case Y=u r racist, but that is beyond the point.) Reason Y implies then that there is a reason/explanation for X (a counter-argument to the OP's statement that there is none.)

It's an argumentative stretch from my part, I know. But it is quite appropriate to your decision to focus, quite conveniently, on the fact that I said "counter-argument" than on the more important fact of you pulling such a cheap and gratuitous race bait at the first opportunity for no apparent reason. Pathetic to say the least.

Umm, he was poking fun at true race-baiters.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[h4rr4r]

This is what conservatives actually think!

He could not get away with that, no president could. He simply has not done anything worse than most presidents. I would not put him at the top of my list, but if they did not impeach reagan for Iran Contra Obama is pretty safe.

Folks like you sure do like to imagine some crazy crap though.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[Anonymous Coward]

Similar story: I live in Texas and mentioned to my (then) girlfriend a couple years ago (who is from up North) that Mexican people constantly whistle at each other. She immediately said I was being racist, when, in fact, I was simply pointing out a difference in culture. Some people are so conditioned to the idea that anyone pointing out any difference is racism. I don't think so, Sunshine...

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[Hatta]

He simply has not done anything worse than most presidents.

That's flat out wrong. He has charged more whistleblowers with espionage than all previous administrations combined. There's more, but I only need one example to prove you wrong.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[gurps_npc]

It is a lot easier to accuse your opponents of having some super-strong fanatical lunatics following them as opposed to admitting that they are intelligent and disagree with you for valid reasons.

Moreover, it is a lot easier to believe your own allies are making true claims against your opponent and be shocked that they do not 'stick', than it is to admit that their claims are ridiculous and laughable, which is why they don't 'stick'.

Democrats were incredibly shocked that GW Bush was re-elected. We all thought it was obvious that he failed to catch Bin Laden, destroyed all the moral standing we got after 9/111, started another, stupid war based on lies, and turned Clinton's surplus into a defecit.

But Bush did in the end pay for his bad judgement by destroying the GOP brand.

Similarly Obama's series of half-scandals (none by themselves are anywhere near as big as stuff Bush did - they just all hit at the same time) has seriously weakened the incredible high moral status he had earned by passing healthcare, killing Bin Ladin, and ending Bush's Iraq war.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[sycodon]

American pilots had the same problem from the 40 to the 80's or so as the airlines were highering mostly exmilitary who brought with them the command structure of the cockpit.

This was also cited as a primary cause for the Tenerife accident that killed over 500. The Dutch captain pilot was (I think) the most senior pilot in the fleet. He was not to be questioned or your career could be over in a flash.

It wasn't until after Tenerife that the concept of the Crew Resource Management began to be taught.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[CrimsonAvenger]

That's because you are racist.

Generally this sort of statement tells me a lot more about you than it does about the person you're replying to.

In this case, his analysis is correct, however. OP assumed that HIS VALUES were more inherently correct than the other guy's values.

Yes, all of us who grew up in "Western" cultures would agree with OP.

Alas, some of us (Koreans, for instance) did NOT grow up in"Western" cultures, and do not, necessarily, assign their priorities the way a "Westerner" would.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[Bert64]

His opinion is based on logic and common sense...

The idea that respect for your elders should be given priority even when doing so results in the death of hundreds of people (some of whom may actually be older than you) is utterly ridiculous. It basically amounts to mass murder.

Any cultural expectations which cause unnecessary death and suffering are fundamentally flawed and should be eliminated. People should be smart enough to question things, not just blindly follow what they've been taught ESPECIALLY when doing so is likely to be detrimental or cause death.

This is not racism so much as anti-stupidity.

And if you believe that aspects of culture should be preserved and protected even when they are clearly detrimental, consider that many cultures are or have been extremely racist and have often taught that members of other races or religions are inferior and should be converted, enslaved or wiped out. If you believe that cultural flaws like this should be changed, then surely you must accept that things like blindly respecting your elders without questioning them are also wrong.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[Grumpinuts]

Err...Cars in India drive on the left, same as in the UK.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[0123456]

Err...Cars in India drive on the left, same as in the UK.

According to my Indian friends, when they go home to visit relatives the traffic drives on whatever side of the road they happen to feel like today.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[AmiMoJo]

Genital mutilation is hardly limited to just girls.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[RazzleFrog]

What a ridiculous argument. How many whistleblowers were there before? Besides the wikileaks kid and Snowden what whistleblowers has he charged with espionage?

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[Anonymous Coward]

He was being sarcastic.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[mooingyak]

His analysis wasn't even serious. The 'you are racist' bit was a joke that went clean over my head at the time I made my comment.

But if we dismiss that for a moment and assume someone somewhere would say that and mean it, I still say they'd be wrong. The OP is expressing his inability to understand the thought process of another culture. He can't work out the context where the pilot's decisions make any sense. That isn't racist. It merely implies a limited ability to adapt alternate mindsets.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[Hatta]

It is a lot easier to accuse your opponents of having some super-strong fanatical lunatics following them as opposed to admitting that they are intelligent and disagree with you for valid reasons.

Lets hear some of those reasons. So far all Obama has offered us is "but terrorism!", "you can trust us!", and "we can't comment on potential litigation".

Similarly Obama's series of half-scandals (none by themselves are anywhere near as big as stuff Bush did - they just all hit at the same time) has seriously weakened the incredible high moral status he had earned by passing healthcare, killing Bin Ladin, and ending Bush's Iraq war.

Obama's scandals don't even measure on the richter scale. His policies are why he is a detestable president. That high moral standing you refer to is entirely illusory:

He campaigned with single payer advocates, and when it came time to implement policy he shut them out, preferring to give the insurance industry mandatory customers.

Bin Laden he killed, but it was an empty victory against a powerless figurehead. The US is no better off for Bin Laden being dead.

He ended Bush's Iraq war, on the date that Bush agreed the war would end. And he was trying to negotiate an extension. Thank the Iraqis and Bush for ending the war, Obama deserves zero credit.

Re: I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[iamhassi]

Needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few - Spock

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[Anonymous Coward]

Do people who did not grow up in Wester cultures think that it is more important to give respect to your elders than it is to the lives of two hundred people?

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[tgd]

He simply has not done anything worse than most presidents.

That's flat out wrong. He has charged more whistleblowers with espionage than all previous administrations combined. There's more, but I only need one example to prove you wrong.

I'm not sure why I'm feeding a troll, especially a particularly dim one, but here goes ...

Who. The. Fuck. Cares.

a) Obama doesn't charge anyone
b) Charging isn't convicting, only the courts can convict. If a law has been broken, its the duty of the DoJ to file those charges.
c) Sticking a label of "whistleblower" on someone who broke the law doesn't magically make them innocent. Whistleblowing is (for very good reason) a high bar to meet, and that is determined by a court, not popular opinion.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[Anonymous Coward]

Where does race enter into it? They were talking about cultural differences. A) there are many people in the US who happen to have Korean ancestry but who wouldn't have the cultural tendency being discussed because they were brought up in a different culture, and B) there are plenty of cultures that have very strong obligations to respect a hierarchy that have nothing to do with Korea. I seem to recall undue deference between pilots also being a problem for pilots trained in the former USSR, and that it was implicated in some serious crashes that would have been avoidable if the junior pilot had been more assertive rather than deferential. It probably exists in all cultures to some degree, but it varies a lot. This is a cultural issue that affects a particular, specialized work environment (pilots flying a plane as a pilot-copilot team), and is not some general commentary on race or genetic background. Understanding those cultural differences has the potential to improve safety. Ignoring them as if they did not exist is irresponsible.

If you're sarcastically joking about how any question about cultural differences can reflexively be labelled "racism", then sorry. And next time it would help to add a ":-)"

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[Anonymous Coward]

According to my Indian friends, when they go home to visit relatives the traffic drives on whatever side of the road they happen to feel like today.

Interesting. That's how they drive in Korea.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[RazzleFrog]

Let's talk about impeachment. There was a lot of debate around what a president could do that would allow for impeachment but let's narrow it down to the 3 main categories that have been used over American history:

1 - Using an office for improper personal gains. This hasn't even been brought against a president but this was more common about elected judges who took bribes. I don't think there is anything here you can hold Obama on.

2- Behaving in a manner that is grossly incompatible with the office. The obvious example here is Bill Clinton. If nothing else Obama is as clean cut a president as we've ever had. You can't have a more model American family than the Obamas.

Which gets us to the tricky one:
3 - Exceed the powers of the office to the degradation of the other branches of government. This is the only one a conservative could really work with since there is no doubt that Obama has stretched the executive branch to its fullest in the face of an incompetent "do nothing" Congress. If you look at history, however, he is nowhere near what Lincoln did during his presidency. He used the excuse of civil war to browbeat a belligerent congress. Obviously Obama isn't facing a civil war (although it seems damn near it some times) but he is facing a lot of challenges both domestically and internationally and in many ways is handcuffed by Congress.

Curious to get your opinion of his impeachable crimes.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[Hatta]

How many whistleblowers were there before?

Are you seriously arguing that there are more whistleblowers in this adminstration than in all previous administrations combined? It's just a coincidence that all the whistle blowers decided to get together and leak during the Obama administration?

Besides the wikileaks kid and Snowden what whistleblowers has he charged with espionage?

Here is a list from a year ago.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[d34thm0nk3y]

Tells me that one of you has a sense of humor.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[gurps_npc]

You want reasons? But you yourself refuse reason.

I said opponents are intelligent and have good reasons to support OBAMA. I never said they have good reasons to support Obama's worst mistakes.

We support Obama for the good things has done, which far outweigh the few bad things you indirectly referred to (make sit harder for me to counter if you give general non-specific complaints). Especially as the opponents have similarly done things just as bad, if not worse. Do you remember "free speech zones"? Bush did them.

Yes Obama wanted single payer, he tried and failed to get that. In order to satisfy his opponents on the right he compromised. As the GOP leadership refused to compromise or even talk, he had to take the best deal he could get. Sorry if you arrogant , dictatorial tendencies don't like compromise.

As for thinking BIn Laden's death is meaningless, you know nothing about politics. Politics is as much about perception as reality. Hence the obsession with PR and censorship. Killing Bin Laden did not just fulfill America's need for closure, but it established a reputation to protect the US for the next decade.

Your basic assumption is that Bush would have fulfilled his promise, and therefore gets no credit. So let me ask you if he had failed to do so, would you not blame him?

Moreover, we don't know that a Republican would have also ended the war. Just because Obama followed Bush's time line does not mean that another President would have.

Obama gets the credit for what he succeeded in doing. Yes, it would have been more if Bush had not also made that claim. So what? The fact that you refuse to give him the credit tell us that YOU are the fanatic, not those that support Obama.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[Anonymous Coward]

My kingdom for some mod points.

But really, good luck convincing anyone that ritual circumcision is anything but normal.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[fredrated]

He already gets away with drone murder while the democrats yawn.

Re: I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[Anonymous Coward]

The needs of the one outweigh the needs of the many. - Spock

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[Anonymous Coward]

Many men *do not* want a forskin.

You may be on some type of personal trip about your "cut" penis, but most men just don't want that piece of skin.

I'll bet you're a Vagan, too.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[Anonymous Coward]

The lives of 200 people are a material thing. Respect for your elders is not.

Placing more importance on a non-material concept than on material things is the act of a fucking moron, no matter where in the world you come from.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[Jawnn]

As an American, it made no sense to me that a person would consider that the respect towards their superior was worth more than the lives of two hundred people.

It's not surprising that you, as an American, have glibly demonstrated that you don't have the foggiest notion of what went on in that cockpit, nor the cultural dynamics that affected what did, and probably more to the point, what did not go on. Which is, of course, the entire point of TFA - there are deeply ingrained social mores that may have adversely affected the communication required of the flight crew operating a complex commercial aircraft. The landing operation, especially, is an intense period, with little margin for certain errors at certain points. It would not take much, the slightest hesitation to say something like, "Hey. Shouldn't we maybe add a little power here?", when it has become evident that the operation has fallen "outside of expected parameters", could easily be enough to make the difference. I wasn't there, but the guy at the controls almost had to have known, well before that "Oh shit!" moment, that his airspeed was not what it was supposed to be. It's not difficult at all to envision that guy asking himself if he should say something yet and risk the wrath of his superior. At that point, it would not have been an "I must say something or we crash" decision. That's the part you're missing.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[Anonymous Coward]

sometimes cultures are wrong.

Some cultures allow the killing of unborn children. They are wrong.
Some cultures incarcerate 3% of their population. They are wrong.
Some cultures outlaw alcholic drinks to people of military and voting age. They are wrong.
Some cultures require men to pay for the upkeep of women who divorce them. They are wrong.
Some cultures expect women to return to the workforce less than 3 months after they give birth. They are wrong.

Is it insensitive that i hold these beliefs? Maybe., But they are the ones that are wrong on these topics.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[femtobyte]

However, forms that are highly likely to eliminate all prospects for sexual pleasure (even make sex painful and unpleasant), generally are. As a circumcised male, I can assure you that my lack of a foreskin does not preclude pleasurable stimulation of my genitals. Female circumcision, removing the clitoris, would be more equivalent to cutting off your whole glans penis, not just trimming the flesh around it --- a far more drastic imposition.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[pspahn]

I am pretty sure I do not only speak for myself, but as a circumcised man, I am happy and thankful for the choice my parents made for me.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[Anonymous Coward]

Second, it's not like the pilots were "uh, yeah, I'll obey my master and won't think about the lives on board." Complex events must have taken place at that moment.

I just wanted to point out that you're saying this because from your point of view

it [makes] no sense [...] that a person would consider [...] respect towards their superior [is] worth more than the lives of two hundred people.

The only ones who know what really happened were in the vehicle.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[OakDragon]

According to my Indian friends, when they go home to visit relatives the traffic drives on whatever side of the road they happen to feel like today.

Interesting. That's how they drive in Korea.

In Korea, the eldest gets right-of-way.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[Anonymous Coward]

It's fucking pathetic. People don't even know what racist means.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[Anonymous Coward]

On the one hand you have the certain embarrassment of questioning your superior, when it will probably turn out that they were right anyway, and you will have shown yourself as immature and rebellious. One the other hand you have a pretty distant possibility of something going wrong, though surely your more experienced senior would be reacting if there was a problem.

I'm a bit dubious about the cultural connection here, but I just want to point out that any difference is not due to disregard for people's lives.
Americans may not have the same stigma against confrontation, but they're not immune to inducing micromorts for short-term benefits. Maybe you'll find other motivations for negligence more "plausible", like laziness, greed or pride.

An example, it's not that these two pilots thought that managing their schedule were more important than the lives of their passengers, they just made a really bad judgment call and didn't think it would cause a problem. (Luckily, no one got hurt.)
Not to excuse it in any way - just to point out that at no point did these pilots make a conscious side-by-side choice between "use our laptops" and "get our passengers safely to their destination".

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[Anonymous Coward]

Any cultural expectations which cause unnecessary death and suffering are fundamentally flawed and should be eliminated. People should be smart enough to question things, not just blindly follow what they've been taught ESPECIALLY when doing so is likely to be detrimental or cause death.

And this is why I'm a vegetarian.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[Anonymous Coward]

You lost me a girlfriend. I gotta call BS.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[Anonymous Coward]

If he was joking, it went clean over my head. Still does, kind of. I mean, I understand what you're saying, but I just don't read it that way, even after you've explained it. And my comment went to +4, insightful in about 15 minutes so I'm not the only one.

Slashdotters should believe their own bullshit that they are some sort of intellectual elite.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[RazzleFrog]

Lol you are arguing it went from 3 to 6? Seriously? Obviously there is a greater wave of leaks (which you call whistleblowing) because of the progress of technology. With a usb drive the size of a nickle you can copy thousands of document and securely transmit them around the world in seconds. Before you actually had to get access to physical documents, make copies, and risk being caught during the exchange. We live in a totally different world.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[Anonymous Coward]

That said, the worst airline disaster in history was caused by a veteran Dutch KLM pilot and the same problem of hierarchy existed there. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/space/deadliest-plane-crash.html

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[swillden]

American pilots had the same problem from the 40 to the 80's or so as the airlines were highering mostly exmilitary

Sir, I applaud your refusal to be dictated to by the supposed authorities who specify what they call "proper" spelling. Sadly, I lack your backbone.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[Anonymous Coward]

So your indian friends are from Boston?

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[Anonymous Coward]

There's nothing funny about sarcasm.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[Anonymous Coward]

The ultimate respect for elders sounds a lot like the American, and all other military institutions.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[AmiMoJo]

When was part of your dick hacked off? If it was when you were a child then you have nothing to compare against so can't say for sure if what you consider normal sexual pleasure is on the same level as what other males feel. In any case you had a elective cosmetic surgical procedure forced on you, even if you later came to accept it.

Men who were circumcised in later life after becoming sexually active have said that it does affect pleasure.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[Anonymous Coward]

He simply has not done anything worse than most presidents.

And this, my friends, is the kind of thinking that allows the two party scam to continue on. I really have no respect for people who use this as an excuse let alone a reason.

Folks like you sure do like to imagine some crazy crap though.

Folks like you just don't give a damn as long as your little partisan team is winning. You're a dirtbag.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[Hatta]

We support Obama for the good things has done

Such as?

which far outweigh the few bad things you indirectly referred to

You directly referred to several "good things", which I directly refuted.

Yes Obama wanted single payer, he tried and failed to get that

He didn't try. Single payer advocates never even got a chance to make their case to Congress.

Killing Bin Laden did not just fulfill America's need for closure, but it established a reputation to protect the US for the next decade.

Sorry, sabre rattling does not count as a 'good thing'.

Your basic assumption is that Bush would have fulfilled his promise, and therefore gets no credit. So let me ask you if he had failed to do so, would you not blame him?

My basic assumption is that the US needs a status of forces agrement with Iraq to have troops there. Iraq was unwilling to extend that agreement with Obama, and I don't see any reason they'd be kinder to Bush. Obama gets no credit because the decision was the Iraqi's, he was trying to extend the SOFA.

Obama gets the credit for what he succeeded in doing

Again, what good has Obama done? Bush did great things for AIDS programs in Africa, and established the largest marine wildlife preserve in the world. I try to give credit where credit is due, but Obama doesn't make it easy.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[Anonymous Coward]

I was convinced & as such, my son remains intact. I just wish someone had tried to convince my father.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[Koreantoast]

Agreed. I think that this is less an issue of Korean vs. Western culture and more an issue of chain of command problems. In the United States, CRM came into play following the UA173 crash in Portland back in 1978; the FAA specifically called out poor cockpit management and communication as one of the primary causes of the accident.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[Anonymous Coward]

My parents were killed by Sarcasm, you insensitive clod.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[Hatta]

Three, in a period of 90 years, to six in a period of 3 years. That's 60 times the prosecutions per unit time. Do you not understand rates?

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[ArcadeMan]

We can last longer in bed because we're less sensitive, erm, down there.

Re: I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[Anonymous Coward]

You sit, are a genius. Bravo. Five words. Bravo.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[Anonymous Coward]

How do you explain Western Military?

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[Anonymous Coward]

It's hard for most people to honestly compare, as normally circumcision is performed at a young age, but there's evidence that it has adverse effects on both male and female pleasure.

Re: I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, but you can't compare the past 2 presidents to all other presidents in US history. It's irrational and illogical to expect corollary behavior by them across rapidly changing national, and global environments. Yes there are consistencies, however to say there's an equivalence more than that of the office itself, is disingenuous to the role that the office plays across the constantly changing times.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is it only considered murder if the victim is an American?

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[Anonymous Coward]

+1 for the easy hygiene and lack of smegma

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[Holi]

And hardly limited to some cultures. Hell it's probably over 50% worldwide for men.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[chuckugly]

Cars in India drive on both sides of the road, in practice.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[Anonymous Coward]

Ohhh, that's unstoppable!

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[femtobyte]

It's true, I cannot personally compare "before" and "after" experiences. And I'm not particularly pro-male-circumcision; however, I understand that my parents did this to me in good faith, on the basis of "best practices" medical advice they would have heard at the time, and I don't feel that I've suffered any for it. In the absence of direct comparison from personal experience, what can be noted is that both circumcised (at birth) and uncircumcised males generally enjoy the sensations of penile sex, and are capable of reaching orgasm, in nearly equal self-reported numbers. In comparison, females who have suffered clitoral removal are nearly certain to report finding vaginal sex to be somewhere between uninspiring and painful, and are much less likely to ever experience orgasm, than un-mutilated females. Thus, the impact of female circumcision is nearly incomparably worse than the effects of foreskin removal.

Note that later-in-life circumcision may have different impacts on sexual enjoyment: when your brain has already been "wired" to associate one type of stimulation with sexual pleasure, and then you significantly change your body, then I'm sure a lot will feel "missing". However, the developing brain is quite plastic, and can adapt to provide equal levels of pleasure/pain for varying raw stimulus --- so a male circumcised from birth isn't necessarily missing out on enjoyment even if the brain has to provide more "amplification gain" to the raw signals arriving from more de-sensitized nerves.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[Hatta]

a) Obama doesn't charge anyone

Obama runs the DOJ. He sets the priorities. He is responsible.

If a law has been broken, its the duty of the DoJ to file those charges.

Deciding what constitutes a law being broken is a large part of the responsibility of the executive. In previous administrations the vast majority of leaks were not interpreted as espionage. Now the DOJ interprets every leak as espionage. That's a change in policy that will harm this country by crippling journalism, and Obama is 100% responsible for that.

BTW, where's all the prosecutions for the illegal behavior uncovered by these whistle blowers? Or the white collar criminals who caused the 2008 financial crisis? It seems like "the law is the law" only applies when it benefits the powerful. When the law protects the people, they have discretion.

c) Sticking a label of "whistleblower" on someone who broke the law doesn't magically make them innocent.

It's not "sticking a label" it's "accurately describing" the behavior. Does it make them innocent in the eyes of the law? No, but it does make their act a public service. A good leader would offer pardons, not federal prison.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[h4rr4r]

How is that worse than selling weapons to our enemies?

Or invading a country for your daddy?

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[h4rr4r]

Earth to idiot, I never voted for him nor is he on my team.

I actually voted for a third party, so shut your little troll yap.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[SteveFoerster]

In Dominica, the default is on the left, but the reality is that you drive on whichever side is less poorly paved.

That's not a slight, though -- when you get as much rain as Dominica does, it's very, very difficult to keep roads in good repair.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[garyok]

On a trip from Delhi to Agra in 2010, I saw so much scary driving. Entire families on the backs of motorbikes. A tractor popping wheelies cos the tow bar was grossly overloaded. Bus passengers jumping on and off the buses in the middle of the road, in traffic going 10-20mph. Another bus driving straight at us when we were on the inside lane of a dual carriageway.

Every car journey in India was like a roller-coaster squared worth of white knuckles.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[Anonymous Coward]

ending Bush's Iraq war.

Let me know when we're actually out of Iraq, including undue influence on the government.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[SteveFoerster]

I'll bet you're a Vagan, too.

Mmm... nope, none of the jokes I have for this are publishable.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[Specter]

" In order to satisfy his opponents on the right ..."

Do you seriously believe this? Obama's problem wasn't the Republican opposition, it was opposition within his own Democrat party! PPACA could have passed easily on straight party lines except for the fact that many Democrats were balking at passing it. The compromises he made were to satisfy his own party.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[v1]

Also similar good reading, the meltdown at Chernobyl was heavily influenced by an engineer in a superior position making bad decisions that other lower experts were aware of but unwilling to make a fuss over. Costs lives.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[Anonymous Coward]

How about the US culture mutilating boy's genitals because "he should look like his father" (and everybody "everybody else does it")?

(Yeah, this is going to be provocative - but this is why the mutilation is done, and any looking for medical reasons is a secondary attempt at justifying the behavior rather than the prime cause.)

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[tnk1]

Having been to India for an extended period, I can confirm that lane markings on the road, especially during rush hours, are merely taken as suggestions or as decorative. They do generally stay on the correct side of the road, mostly, but in a place where you signal by beeping your horn a few times that you are turning in any direction, moving forward, or backing up, I can see why people might wonder if poor drivers have maintained habits from living in India.

And no, I am not joking. Trucks that do have turn signals tend to have only one, and around it is usually a placard that says "turn signal", as if most of the population would be wondering why the light under the bumper is blinking.

Needless to say, I had a driver in India, and I can't even begin to describe how glad I was that I never needed to get behind a steering wheel over there.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[Comrade Ogilvy]

First of all, we do not know that Asian culture had anything to do with it. Sometimes the cockpit crew fails to explicitly communicate their concerns or their actions. Air France plowed a perfectly good jumbo into the Atlantic because the crew failed to say out loud what they were each doing, and thought should be done.

Second of all, no one decides "I would rather risk personal death and/or watch 300 people die in fire than maybe embarrass my boss". The information is filtered through other parts of the brain first.

And here comes my main point: "Group-think" is a critical survival tool for a species that is weak in tooth and claw, and our ancestors brains have been subject to strong selection pressure towards group-think for at least a few million years. If the bossy guy in your tribe says south and you believe game is only 50% likely to be there, raising a huge fuss because game is 75% likely to be north might be a fatal error. Being alone in a dangerous world risks unnecessary sudden death. It is not stupidity to be swayed by the group. Under emotional pressure and in the face of ambiguity, older parts of your brain are trying to save your life.

In our technologically advanced world, we need to carefully build conceptual-based habits on how to deal with lots of data and uncertainty. Cockpit resource management is not a new thing. It is clear that this particular crew would get an "F" in cockpit resource management on this particular day. They are hardly the first to get that grade. That situation was drifting away from a stable approach should have been obvious to the crew at 500 feet, when their airspeed was already below target and dropping. Someday, we will probably know what they were thinking.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[Anonymous Coward]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Choice-supportive_bias

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[Anonymous Coward]

Fine, so let them make that decision when they're adults rather than making that decision for them when they're newborns.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[Anonymous Coward]

I think this is my favorite Slashdot comment I've read in at least the past 5 years.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[Anonymous Coward]

+1 for me too. Very pleased with circumcision here.

Mine wasn't ritual or anything, but I'm glad they did it, my wife is glad it was done, and generally I'd say it has been a net positive. That may be all cultural, of course, but if it ain't broke, why are people complaining?

Female "circumcision" is not the same thing and is a brutal practice that needs to end. It is merely mutilation for the purposes of keeping girls down.

Re: I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[Anonymous Coward]

Quick! Call the anti-racist!

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[kaatochacha]

Oh my god, I just spit up on myself. Well done!

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[Anonymous Coward]

As a member of the oppressed class, for once, I don't feel particularly oppressed.

Everything works just great. Sex is awesome. Stuff stays clean. Looks better. If that's "mutilation", then bring on some mutilation.

Compared to other forms of mutilation, circumcision is no more mutilation that having a piercing or a tattoo. It's just optional body modification.

My parents made a lot of decisions for me that I had no say over, this is probably the decision I would be the least concerned about.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[sycodon]

Damn correct speling! It is the mark of sheep!

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[argStyopa]

Well, clearly YOU are racist. Too.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[Anonymous Coward]

But... but.... man, you racist.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[Hatta]

Presidents can be impeached for "High Crimes and Misdemeanors". This is a technical term which basically means abuse of power. While discussing the power of the Senate to try impeachments, Hamilton said:

The subjects of its jurisdiction are those offenses which proceed from the misconduct of public men, or, in other words, from the abuse or violation of some public trust. They are of a nature which may with peculiar propriety be denominated POLITICAL, as they relate chiefly to injuries done immediately to the society itself.

So the violation of public trust is within the jurisdiction of the senate. Would not a violation of the oath of office be a violation of the public trust? Since the president is sworn to uphold the constitution, wouldn't exceeding constitutional limits be an impeachable offense?

If you're still with me, all we need are examples of when Obama has failed to defend the constitution. Allowing blanket surveillance without specifically describing the places to be searched and the things to be found is just one. Assassinating a US citizen without due process is another.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[Anonymous Coward]

Because if you considered killing foreigners you were at war with to be murder, it would be a little hard to avoid defeat.

Not that I think al-Awlaki's death over there is actually a problem. Citizen or not, he wasn't going to get caught for a trial without doing more damage, and he was not in the US at the time. Completely appropriate use of military firepower. And I am definitely not an Obama supporter, but if you have a program of killing terrorist targets who are at war with us, the fact that he happens to be a citizen can only go so far.

Still, his citizenship does demand that we at least consider and properly justify his targeting as being absolutely necessary. If he could have reasonably have been captured for a trial, he should have gotten a trial. Good luck with apprehending him in the places he was hiding out. Short of invasion, that guy was untouchable over there.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[Anonymous Coward]

Some cultures define happiness as acquisitiveness. Some cultures argue for the rights of corporations over the rights of individuals. Some cultures believe that health care needs to be earned through work and is not a right. Some cultures argue for the rights of the unborn over the rights of the living. Some cultures believe in the death penalty. Some cultures incarcerate illegal immigrants. Some cultures promote war and treat soldiers as heroes, but veterans as parasites. Some cultures view individuals as economic resources to be exploited. Some cultures lock up their peoples for perpetuity for three minor non-violent drug offenses. Some cultures treat search every person like a suspect before letting them board airplanes. Some cultures believe that if you're poor, it has everything to do with your actions and nothing to do with your environment or genetic makeup. Some cultures believe only the rich deserve a chance.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[Anonymous Coward]

Conservatives don't actually think that. Unless they happen to be drunk or retarded.

And yes, in before, "All Conservatives are retarded". Derp.

They might use that sort of comment as hyperbole to illustrate just to what unprecedented extremes they feel Obama could get away with things, but no one thinks he can get away with televised murder.

On the other hand, he might be getting away with non-televised murders based on some of his policies.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[T.E.D.]

According to my Indian friends, when they go home to visit relatives the traffic drives on whatever side of the road they happen to feel like today.

Interesting. That's how they drive in Korea.

In Korea, the eldest gets right-of-way.

That explains their car designs.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[h4rr4r]

Depending on how you define murder, lots of presidents have gotten away with it.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[phorm]

It's better than Korea by a long shot

How do you figure that? What's our experience with Korea?

(and I do hope you meant "South Korea", although the statement would be accurate if you included the PDRK)

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[kwbauer]

Yes. This is where political correctness, multiculturalism and the notion that there is no absolute truth break down in the real world. It is not racist to point out that a strict adherence to a cultural norm is "a bad thing." Must we also accept honor killings and female genital mutilation as those seem to be culture based. Were we wrong to hold any German soldier below the highest echelons of power accountable for actions in WWII? After all, their culture (military and otherwise) dictated a strict adherence to orders from superiors. Do we now support skinheads and neo-nazis in the US in their hatred of Jews and Blacks because they have adopted a culture that informs them of the propriety of such views? Were we wrong to clamp down on racism in the American South? After all, white supremacy and segregation were very much a part of southern culture.

Everybody, including every Korean, that got on that plane expected that the pilots and crew would do everything in their power to keep them safe. That is a basic unwritten but widely accepted contract in commercial transport going back centuries (Captain going down with the ship and such). We held the Italian ship captain responsible and publicly ridiculed him for not honoring that contract.

Why then do we not have the same right and responsibility to do the same just because the crew are Korean. Are Koreans so superior that their cultural norms trump all others? Would that not also be a racist viewpoint?

Sometimes we simply need to admit that there is an ultimate truth and that one culture might be wrong if it is in violation of that ultimate truth. That is not the same as saying everything about that culture is wrong. It is simply saying that an aspect of that culture is wrong and needs to be left in the past.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[AmiMoJo]

So it was nothing to do with faith, your parents made a medical decision? Elective surgery that has debatable benefits and which addresses problems that most people never encounter and which are almost impossible to predict in infants isn't a very sensible decision, considering the risks and doubts over the long term effects.

If it was faith then your parents forced their religion on you, and fortunately you happened to grow up and believe the same thing. If you hadn't I'm sure you wouldn't be so happy about it.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[cpt kangarooski]

Impeachment is basically political; if Congress impeaches and convicts the President, the courts won't hear an appeal even on the grounds that it was baseless and certainly wouldn't try to reseat the former President.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[pspahn]

Fail.

There's always some nincompoop that thinks they know everything about a person because they recently took a Critical Reasoning course.

For me to have choice bias here, it makes sense that I would have had to make the choice myself, though I suppose it's not out of the question that I automatically support my parents' choice because I am biased toward their decisions despite the fact that my parents haven't spoke since I was in grade school.

For all I know, you, the AC here, copy/paste that link simply because you want your own confirmation bias that your parents' choice (or lack-thereof) was the correct one for you.

My choice bias in this case is non-existent, since I am not remembering something better than it actually is. I am simply relying on feedback from others, such as my girlfriend, when she states "yes, I am glad you are circumcised". Or when I hear tales from the uncut folks about how the smeg, I am not falsely recollecting some memory here, I am simply weighing the options and deciding that I am happy with this choice that has been made for me.

Would it be choice bias if I were happy that my parents had a miscarriage between my older sister and I, resulting in the very strong likelihood that I was never born? Probably, huh?

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[kwbauer]

That is the result of constantly being bashed over the head by liberals apushing political correctness and multiculturalism. I would agree that it tends to be mainly an American and possibly Canadian problem. However, I do see some aspects of it in various areas of the UK as well such as letting whole sections of a town be run nearly exclusively according to the "culture" of an immigrant group even when that means ignoring some aspects of British law and culture.

We do need to stop pretending that every culture is equal. For instance, I firmly believe that many aspects of Muslim culture are horrible and do lead to an increased tendency to engage in what the West has labelled terrorism. However, I also believe that some aspects of Muslim culture are superior, to a point, than most Western cultures. One example is in the area of modesty in dress. I believe that Western cultures are far to revealing but Muslims go way overboard the other direction.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[MisterSquid]

Apparently, blind adherence to the rule that age and wisdom are directly related can have negative affects as well.

Sure, I did not mean to suggest Confucianism always provides optimal results (for whatever optimum one may be seeking). I only meant that misunderstanding deference to one's elders may not be an issue of hate.

That said, my experience with this aspect of Confucianism--of being deferential to one's elders--has little to do with wisdom. It's simply the way hierarchy is established and observed among Koreans. Many times, younger Koreans will complain to their same-age peers when selfish, greedy, and foolish elders are not present to be offended.

For example, when an elder asks juniors to work with little to no compensation, the younger group may (will!) grouse about how greedy and insufferable the elder is (a direct confrontation is likely to cause drama and this, too, happens very frequently). Confucianism can "prescribe" roles for both inter- and intragenerational behavior, in this case bonding members of one group while enabling the "superior" to extract a profit.

Not to say such roles are good or bad. My take is that Confucianism produces a different set of cultural effects than, say, Western Individualism. Declaring one approach to be "better" than the other is not the same as trying to understand and describe how different ideologies condition cultural behavior.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[kwbauer]

How did AC 1 cause AC 2 to lose a girlfriend?

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sorry but "cultural dynamics" is a poor fig leaf for what, admittedly on the surface, appears to be gross incompetence. Maintaining proper airspeed on approach is flight school 101, not a fucking Korean costume drama. I hope for the pilots' sake they come up w/a better reason for this tragic event.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[NatasRevol]

Well, they were pilots, so highering might be ok.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[xaxa]

And hardly limited to some cultures. Hell it's probably over 50% worldwide for men.

Americans, Muslims, Jews, and (for some reason?) Australians. Between a sixth and a third of the world's men.

It's rare in most of Europe and most of the rest of the world.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[kwbauer]

"Or the white collar criminals who caused the 2008 financial crisis?"

Hell, a good chunk of them work for Obama, why would they charge themselves?

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[HornWumpus]

So does German.

e.g. Fik Du is fuck you. Fiken Si is fuck you sir.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[freezin fat guy]

Why do your people always pull the logical conversation card?

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[ArgonautThief]

Are you actually saying that al-Awlaki did not have it coming to him? C'mon.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[Registered Coward v2]

As an American, it made no sense to me that a person would consider that the respect towards their superior was worth more than the lives of two hundred people.

Oddly enough, US airlines had this issue as well and Cockpit Resource Management was created to deal with the problem. We crashed planes for the same stupid reason.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[Anonymous Coward]

take it easy eugene

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[kwbauer]

The lowliest of recruits in the US Army are taught, repeatedly, that they are to uphold the Constitution first and obey all lawful orders and that it is their duty to know what is a lawful order and what isn't.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[Solandri]

It also doesn't seem like it would be relevant in this case. According to Korean newspapers, the trainee pilot in command of the B777 (Lee Kang-kook) with just 43 hours on the B777 was 46 years old. The training co-pilot (Lee Jeong-min) with 3200 hours on the B777 was 49 years old. So even if the cultural age-based hierarchy were there, it would've been present as deference to the more experienced pilot.

If it was the older and more experienced pilot who screwed up and failed to note the dangerously low airspeed, pretty much any trainee pilot from any culture would've figured his trainer knew what he was doing. The Korean Ministry of Transportation has already stated that ultimate responsibility lay with Lee Jeong-Min, as he was the trainer on the flight.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[Anonymous Coward]

We support Obama for the good things has done

Such as?

http://whatthefuckhasobamadonesofar.com/

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[Comrade Ogilvy]

If you're still with me, all we need are examples of when Obama has failed to defend the constitution. Allowing blanket surveillance without specifically describing the places to be searched and the things to be found is just one. Assassinating a US citizen without due process is another.

Technically, yes, by the letter of the Constitution. But by the traditions such as that exist, such are very weak grounds for putting forth an impeachment proceeding. A key issue here is that these "crimes" are all done with the implicit blessing of Congress. Congress could easily withdraw certain measures that the Administration as used as legal cover, and Congress has (so far) chosen not to.

So, yes, I think a broad reading of the president's positive duties is rational. Yes, it is a political question of whether Congress wishes to proceed. But the problem is that Congress itself does not want to take on the heavy lifting of clarifying the legal situation by the means that the Constitution has put at its disposal.

There are members of Congress that are happy to whine, but the actual majority and minority leadership in both houses are more scared of clarifying their own position to the American people, than they are concerned about the alleged abuses of this president.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[femtobyte]

Correct; my parents are religious (and I continue in the same faith), but circumcision is not a part of their/my faith practice (Christianity, which explicitly rejected mandating circumcision right from the start). In light of current medical information, I would probably not have a male child of my own circumcised (... not that I even have any near-term plans to have children). However, I think the issue of male circumcision is a delicately balanced issue --- weighing small chances of major harms against benefits that will vary strongly depending on other external factors; along with harder-to-quantify issues of personal subjective experience. On the other hand, female circumcision is downright barbaric --- when you're just plain obliterating the capability for genital sexual pleasure, for no potential health benefits whatsoever.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[T.E.D.]

Personally I agree with some of those positions, disagree with others, but IMHO all of them are debatable. People who disagree with me have a point, and a mostly sensible place they are coming from.

That differs from the GP list, mostly in that the vast majority of the entire society I've grown up with finds all of those practices abhorrent, and there is really no good justification for any of them that isn't based in superstition or fear.

The stuff in your list is political disagreements that our society is split on. To take one example, I personally agree that it is unjust for one part of the electorate to gang up on another and take away their drinking rights just out of sheer force of numbers. However, there are logical reasons to want to prohibit mentally-imparing substances to people whose decision making capabilities already aren't yet fully developed (according to many studies). That isn't an argument I agree with (nor do you I take it), but it at least has some good logic behind it.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[RKThoadan]

That's an awesome point. Where's mod points when I need them!

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[AdamWill]

Right, that was my immediate reaction. The summary's "You are obliged to be deferential toward your elders and superiors in a way that would be unimaginable in the U.S." seems to have been written by someone who's never heard of the U.S. military...

OK, an airline isn't a military institution, but still. The 'chain of command' theory of management is hardly unique to Asia.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[AdamWill]

"This is where political correctness, multiculturalism and the notion that there is no absolute truth break down in the real world. It is not racist to point out that a strict adherence to a cultural norm is "a bad thing." Must we also accept honor killings and female genital mutilation as those seem to be culture based."

I don't think anyone said that was racist, and neither "political correctness, multiculturalism [nor] the notion that there is no absolute truth" require one to condemn either of those things. What a 'politically correct, multicultural' person might suggest is that in order to succeed in reducing honor killings and female genital mutilation, it would be a good idea to understand the cultural context of those practices rather than simply dismissing them as barbaric and declaring that They Shall No Longer Happen, since that approach tends to work poorly.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[AdamWill]

Sigh. Require one *NOT* to condemn either of those things, I meant to write.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[AdamWill]

"Let me spell it out. Gandhi_2 is making fun of our western tendency to be so hyper-sensitive to cultural issues that mentioning, or even noticing, that someone is from another culture or genetic group is likely to elicit a charge of racism from someone."

I think the reason people are having trouble getting Gandhi_2's joke is that that trend has rarely been a 'problem' on Slashdot.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[Ogive17]

It's showing as +5 funny which means people thought you were also making a joke.

Here is a scenario. You are driving towards a steep cliff with your father, who happened to be sleeping in the car. As you approach the edge you ask if you should turn right or left. Since he's sleeping, he doesn't hear you.

Do you:
1. Stop the car
2. Turn right
3. Turn left
4. Drive over the cliff while waiting on an answer

I think that was the joke he was making. The summary seems to suggest the pilot refused to take appropriate action to save his life and the lives of those on the plane because he was waiting for someone to tell him exactly what to do. The entire point is that he's a trained pilot and should not need step by step instruction on how to land a plane.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[AdamWill]

"Any local would have agreed since it was completely true"

No, they wouldn't. Don't co-opt the rest of your town into your racist idiocy.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[Hatta]

But by the traditions such as that exist, such are very weak grounds for putting forth an impeachment proceeding.

If you can impeach a president for violating an oath to tell the truth in a civil case unrelated to his presidential duties, you can impeach a president for directly violating his oath of office.

A key issue here is that these "crimes" are all done with the implicit blessing of Congress.

That doesn't make the offenses unimpeachable, it just means the Congress is in on it. If I lynch a black man with the implicit blessing of the sheriff, that doesn't make it legal. It makes the process corrupt. Same thing here.

So, yes, I think a broad reading of the president's positive duties is rational. Yes, it is a political question of whether Congress wishes to proceed. But the problem is that Congress itself does not want to take on the heavy lifting of clarifying the legal situation by the means that the Constitution has put at its disposal.

You're absolutely right here. Congress doesn't have the political will. But that has no bearing on whether there should be political will. I don't see how anyone who values the rule of law can argue that Obama doesn't deserve to be impeached for his crimes.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[AdamWill]

Then try:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdulrahman_al-Awlaki#Abdulrahman_al-Awlaki

His 16 year old, by all accounts entirely unobjectionable, son.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[Gnostic Teflon]

Uhm, the real reason no one in Congress moved to impeach Reagan was that at the time shortly after he gave Khomeini's Iran Hawk missiles for money to finance Nicaragua's Contra rebels, he really couldn't remember what he'd done the day before. Alzheimer's plaques were short-circuiting his brain. Presently, it seems, Obama is on top of his intellectual game.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[AdamWill]

So did English, until fairly recently: thee, thou, you.

Hell, it still does, sir.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[RazzleFrog]

Do you not understand statistics? Your sample size is too small to make any valid conclusions. It's also like saying there were more car crashes in the 20th century than in every year prior to that.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[Chuckstar]

I agree. Human minds simply don't work as rationally/logically as the guy you quoted seems to believe. Maybe given plenty of time to think something through, a person would think "if I don't say something, then 200 people will die". But in the moment, that's not how our minds work. Frankly, in those types of spur-of-the-moment decisions, we tend to fall back on culture/training over rationality. I imagine this would especially be true because of the nature of what happens in the cockpit. By the time there is a situation that really is potentially fatal, I'm sure a co-pilot has many times seen things that seemed wrong but ended up working out just fine. Most times that you come in too slow, the pilot eventually notices, powers up, and maybe you just land a little short on the runway. So over time the co-pilot learns that even things that may seem wrong usually end up working out OK. Then the one time he really, really should have said something, he doesn't have the time (and/or presence of mind) to override the bad habit of keeping his mouth shut.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[Anonymous Coward]

So? Just because it's our culture doesn't mean we can't be wrong about some stuff too. Should we expect foreigners to politely keep quiet about our prison industry?

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[RazzleFrog]

The laws that allow surveillance of individuals were laws put in place by Congress and started under Bush - not Obama. So strike 1 on that.

Anwar al-Awlaki is definitely something that can be debated. The legality of it has been debated to death and both sides have their different precedents to pull from. It isn't definitely not a clear cut case.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[ArgonautThief]

I totally agree with you on that one. It is unfortunate and inexcusable. Regrettably he was in the wrong place at the wrong time and surrounded by others that were "legitimate" targets.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[Anonymous Coward]

So I take it you are pro-life?

Re: I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[jd2112]

sounds like a one line summary of an Ayn Rand book.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[Anonymous Coward]

But the reality is that it's rarely presented like that. Sure, in hindsight you can see the choice as being between respecting elders and letting people die, but at the time it's more like, "my superior is doing something that I think might be risky, but he is wiser and more experienced, so I'll trust his judgement." This is the same thinking you're expected to use in the military. Yes, even in the US.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[Anonymous Coward]

Pray do tell, what exactly is there to cut off of a cunt that doesn't eliminate all prospects for sexual pleasure, and what exactly is there to cut off a dick that doesn't do the same?

Shut the fucking fuck up.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[jeremyp]

Whether he had it coming to him or not, it's murder unless you go through due process to make sure he deserved it.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[GodInHell]

BOOM.

(too soon?)

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[cayenne8]

That's because you are racist.

I think that's ONLY if he is also a White Guy saying that.

He only said he was American, so we can't be sure if he is racist in saying that unless we can also verify HIS race and sex as being the appropriate one to be called a racist.

Let us not jump to premature conclusions!!

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[Chuckstar]

The Koreans had a series of problems (mostly in the 80s, IIRC) with preventable crashes that have been pretty definitively traced to deference to authority. Obviously, Asians do not have a monopoly on cultures that defer to authority. But in Korea there was certainly a confluence of culture/training that was causing types of accidents not seen in other culture/training regimes. Even Korean investigators conceded that their culture was playing a part, and that training had to be designed to overcome that culture.

The problem was not just deference within the cockpit. One of the crashes occured when a pilot failed to be firm enough with air traffic control in NYC about their low fuel status. The busy-sounding ATC guy asked "are you declaring an emergency?" and the Korean Air pilot said something non-committal like "not really", when he should have just said "yes, we have a fuel emergency." Plane ran out of fuel a few minutes later and crashed.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[Anonymous Coward]

Fair point. Male and female circumcision isn't equal in degree. Tell me then, how much of a baby girl's labia _can_ we cut away to the point that it's equal? If your argument is that _any_ amount is unethical, then doesn't that suggest a touch of hypocrisy?

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[cayenne8]

Then perhaps before someone can be a pilot, during the examinations we need to screen to see if the person in question would defer to hierarchy over saving multiple lives.

If you don't choose the lives of your passengers, then you are immediately disqualified from being a pilot, regardless of race or gender.

That this should be a qualifying attribute should be a no-brainer.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[Kancept]

Even the Vulcans knew "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few or the one."

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[cayenne8]

I remember one time driving through the Indian part of town in the UK with my American girlfriend and saying something about how they drive like they're still in Bombay as a car on the wrong side of the road barely missed us. Any local would have agreed since it was completely true, but she was absolutely shocked by my EVIL RACISM.

Interesting...what part of the US was she from?

I find different parts of the country will tolerate different levels of that type speech against different ethnicities, etc...with different levels of offense.

When not around said groups of people, I often hear the terms spic, chink, nigger, wop, (insert non-PC racial/ethnic/sexist term here) in the course of conversation and jokes, and no one gets upset or offended at it.

In different parts of the country, some of those will raise the ire of some not in those groups, but more often than not, publicly everyone is agast at such language, but in private, I find most people aren't that offended and regularly use such language in a very natural manner.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[Comrade Ogilvy]

Congress doesn't have the political will. But that has no bearing on whether there should be political will. I don't see how anyone who values the rule of law can argue that Obama doesn't deserve to be impeached for his crimes.

And I would argue that if one values the rule of law, then logically it is Congress' duty to clarify the ambiguities first before we worry over whether the president should be impeached. Otherwise it will always devolve into a "I feel it in my bones" shouting match.

The problem is not one of this particular president. If Congress lays down like a doormat, then the president can walk all over the Constitution, and the Courts will act deferentially.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[Anonymous Coward]

Honestly.. smegma? it is not unclean, it is just exfoliated skin cells, and it does not smell or taste bad. it is not a tide of scum building up, just part of the way the penis keeps itself clean..

if you are washing your penis, then washing under the foreskin is not the work of more than a second. I just run my tongue around under my foreskin now and again, and I even get pleasure from that

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[Hatta]

The laws that allow surveillance of individuals were laws put in place by Congress and started under Bush - not Obama. So strike 1 on that.

It's still unconstitutional. Obama swore an oath to uphold the Constitution. It's his responsibility not to use powers that are not authorized in the Constitution.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[Valdrax]

Tells me that one of you has a sense of humor.

Stop oppressing my culture!

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[Hatta]

What ambiguities? The 4th amendment is not ambiguous.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, this ---/\

Not all cities in India are like this. Delhi and Chennai are cities filled with drivers on the "I am Death Incarnate" setting.

Bangalore (which I just got back from), much less so! People honk at you because they don't WANT to hit you!

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[RazzleFrog]

Actually no. It is NOT his responsibility to make determinations on the Constitutionality of a law. That is the judicial branch of the government. His job is to enforce the laws put forth by the legislative branch - whether he agrees with them or not. Then it is up to somebody to contest those laws through the courts and eventually up to the Supreme Court who can then strike it down as unconstitutional.

You totally were not paying attention in your social studies classes.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[Valdrax]

As an American, it made no sense to me that a person would consider that the respect towards their superior was worth more than the lives of two hundred people.

Well, of course, if you phrase it as a conscious decision to knowingly sacrifice 200 people's safety for social conformity, then it sounds like something only a monster could do.

The truth is probably a bit more subtle and a lot less malicious than that.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[Anonymous Coward]

"The idea that respect for your elders should be given priority even when doing so results in the death of hundreds of people (some of whom may actually be older than you) is utterly ridiculous."

You can't know whether deference in any circumstance will lead to a worse outcome. The idea is that, like a child to a parent, deference leads to better outcomes overall, because you're deferring to someone with more experience, better able to assimilate his environment and act appropriately.

However, obviously this particular form of deference (which is actually based principally on generation and only secondarily on age) needs to be modulated in a professional environment, especially in a cockpit during high-risk maneuvers.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[Darinbob]

Even with westerners, it is very easy to start off with "excuse me, sir, but I think we don't have enough fuel" instead of saying "pay attention or we're going to crash!" If the pilots have a military background then they've learned to follow chain of command and show deference to superiors. There have been crashes with western crew due to failure to communicate dangerous situations clearly, and this is the reason airlines now train specifically to counter this problem.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[Darinbob]

In my neighborhood, everyone drives according the rules of his or her native country.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[Comrade Ogilvy]

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

"secure" "effects" "unreasonable" "probable cause" What does these words mean? The Constitution does not say. English Common Law helps with the "probable cause", but not so much the others.

BTW, PRISM does not touch your person, house, or papers. It is only a violation of a broader sense of privacy that is highly ambiguously defined. I would further note that you do not own your Caller Detail Records; those are owned by a corporation, who may choose to keep private or not. By what Constitutional right do you lay claim to the authority to prevent a corporate entity from sharing its property with the government?

My personal opinion is that we should have a right to privacy of our corporate records. How to accomplish that will take an act of Congress. Shouting about the president accomplishes nothing. We need Congress to act first. Proper behavior by the president will follow.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[Anonymous Coward]

It's the opposite: men who have circumcision later in life overwhelming report dramatically increased sensation and pleasure. But for various reasons this doesn't tell us much of anything about neonatal circumcision.

Also, the medical community has come back around to being neutral to moderately in favor of neonatal male circumcision. When you add up all the benefits--reduced risk of AIDS, a multitude of various other STDs including HPV, penile cancer (related to the STDs, likely), and urinary tract infections--you actually end up with a significant net benefit compared to the risk of complications from the procedure. (See, e.g., http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/prevention/research/malecircumcision/otherconditions.html)

That doesn't factor in the issue of sexual pleasure, of course. Or deal with people's obsession over having part of their penis lopped off. But you don't have to relegate your parents' choice to having been in good faith but ultimately bad for you.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you say it in an exaggerated mexican accent while making weed-smoking motions with your fingers?

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[femtobyte]

I don't consider it to have bad for me at all; I'm perfectly satisfied with my genitalia as it is. As for the balance of medical opinion, the US medical community leans towards it. On the other hand, medical communities in many European countries --- that have better health outcomes and less institutional pressures to over-operate for profit --- tend to lean against; personally, I put more confidence in the medical practices of countries with overall healthier populations (not the one that outspends everyone else for third-world-worthy results, thanks to Capitalism...). However, the weight of clear-cut (ahem) benefit either way is rather slim.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[Anonymous Coward]

my parents did this to me in good faith, on the basis of "best practices" medical advice they would have heard at the time

Do you realize that this would almost always fit females that have been circumcised?

I don't feel that I've suffered any for it.

Do you really not care that you never got to experience normal human sex? Do you really not care that you and your partners never felt the mechanical action of a naturally evolved sex toy?

In comparison, females who have suffered clitoral removal

Talking about lopping off the whole gland isn't much of a comparison. About half of female circumcisions performed are only clitoral hood removal. This is EXACTLY the same procedures as on boys with the same results sexually and it is justly an international crime.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[Hatta]

Warrants have issued that do not particularly describe the place to be searched or the things to be seized. That's unambiguously in violation of the 4th amendment.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[Anonymous Coward]

I am with you in the middle there, but the first and last one I am not. I take the parasite view of a fetus, so until they can live without heroic measures outside the womb, they can be treated as any other parasite in the body can. The last one is just a wrong thought process. There is not an expectation, there an end to the legal requirement that your job stay open to you. You create the expectation by feeling that this means they are forced back to work at this point, which is simply untrue.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[Hatta]

If it's not his job to defend the constitution, why does he take an oath to do so?

Besides, the constitutionality of an act depends solely on the act itself, and the constitution. The constitution is what it is, and it can only be modified by an amendment properly ratified.

If Congress passes an unconstiutional law, the President enforces the unconstitutional law, and SCOTUS refuses to do their duty and strike down the unconstitutional law, all that means is that the government is corrupt to the point of illegitimacy. And that is actually the case with respect to the US government today.

What you are describing is not the rule of law, but the rule of men. By your logic, if you can install enough cronies in high office you can make anything constititutional. That's not how just government works.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[bestalexguy]

Both racism and ethnocentrism can have negative effects, but ethnocentrism is not always coupled with hate.

Your implication is false. Albert Schweitzer didn't hate blacks and considered them inferior. Something similar could be said about Lincoln. You would be right only if science showed blacks are truly inferior.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[MichaelSmith]

It might not be that. As a 16 year old I flew to Sydney with my dad in 1986. We had multiple problems with our rented aircraft and finished up getting lost over the blue mountains due to a faulty gyroscope. So we called ATC for help and they radar vectored us to Bankstown, where we started an approach. But we started to land long, ran out of runway and dumped the flaps at 50 feet to go round. Piston engines react instantly so we got speed up easily.

But when my dad got us back in to the circuit I could see that he had totally lost it due to stress. ATC called us and asked us to do a 180 degree turn so they could reverse the circuit. He didn't hear them. I thought If I say anything at all he might lose it totally and crash us. Maybe I should just shut up and let him attempt a down wind landing again. Then ATC called again and he missed hearing it so I spoke up Dad they want you to do a U turn. He snapped out of it, did the turn and landed us okay.

I can totally understand the guy in the right hand seat not saying anything even when he sees the pilot in command making mistakes.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[Comrade Ogilvy]

Which is a failure of the Judicial branch of gov't for issuing what you claim is a flawed warrant. At least one sitting federal judge happens to disagree with your legal interpretation. It so happens I personally agree with you that such a warrant is flawed. However, as a matter of law, the Executive can claim this is (at worse) ambiguous, because they are acting under the guidance of both the Judiciary and Congress.

Under our Constitution, it is shared the responsibility of Congress and the Judiciary to clarify these questions.

Which gets back to my larger point. If we desire the president to not walk all over the Constitution, the first thing we need is a Congress that does not lay down like a doormat.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[LifesABeach]

"racist?" Why don't we ask what the 2 dead chinese girls what they think of the usefulness of hierarchical culture. The left seat shouldn't be allowed to operate a toaster, let alone ANY aircraft. I don't blame the left seat, I blame the person(s) that put him there.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[sjames]

It' not quite that. It's more like the co-pilot assuming because of years of cultural conditioning that he simply *MUST* somehow be wrong since his superior believes things to be A-OK.

Since he truly believes that he is wrong, he also truly believes the passengers are safe.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[sabri]

That's because you are racist.

Political correctness has no place on the flight deck of an airliner. If the co-pilot due to cultural reasons does not dare to speak when his captain is about to crash the plane, it is posing a danger.

Racism is not the same as racial discrimination. Racial discrimination is where one values one human lower than another based on nothing more than race. The simple fact that some cultures have different values than others does not have anything to do with racism. And when a co-pilot does not dare to speak to his captain for cultural reasons, that fact is becoming a matter of great importance to understand, but more importantly, mitigate.

A flight crew is a flightcrew for a reason. If only one pilot was required, it was a lot easier. When there is a crew, someone must be in charge. However, even that someone in charge is making a mistake, he or she needs to be corrected. And if the person is not getting corrected due to cultural values, that has absolutely nothing to do with racism. It has to do with the lives of people boarding that aircraft, and the people on the ground. And even if for whatever reason you would think it still is racism, I would argue that saving lives has a higher priority.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[scot4875]

Unless, of course, that blind deference to age saves more lives in other ways than the deaths plane crashes like this cause.

Unfortunately, it's an incredibly difficult thing to measure; I think that what you're saying is likely true, but we have absolutely no way of knowing for sure.

--Jeremy

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[sabri]

If it was the older and more experienced pilot who screwed up and failed to note the dangerously low airspeed, pretty much any trainee pilot from any culture would've figured his trainer knew what he was doing. The Korean Ministry of Transportation has already stated that ultimate responsibility lay with Lee Jeong-Min, as he was the trainer on the flight.

As far as I know, there were four pilots on the flight deck. Each pilot, even a pre-solo student pilot, will know that speed + altitude = life. If you are flying at low speed at a low altitude, you're in danger. The PNF should have been monitoring airspeed, but the other pilots had a responsibility as well.

When I was a student pilot, I witnessed flight instructors mess up as well. On my second solo I almost crashed into another airplane with 1 CFI and 2 student pilots on board, when I had the right of way (I was in the pattern doing t&g's). Moral of the story: everyone on the flight deck has a responsibility. An accident is not a single event, it is a chain of events, and a multitude of people not paying attention. There is no single person to blame.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[scot4875]

I used to be ignorant, like you. Turns out we were both wrong.

You don't actually know jack shit about FGM; it's not all that different from male genital mutilation in most cases.

Neither should be practiced.

--Jeremy

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[Anonymous Coward]

Obama == Nigger.
'nuff said.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[Anonymous Coward]

Some cultures spell Honour without the 'u'. They are wrong.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[Anonymous Coward]

However, forms that are highly likely to eliminate all prospects for sexual pleasure (even make sex painful and unpleasant), generally are. As a circumcised male, I can assure you that my lack of a foreskin does not preclude pleasurable stimulation of my genitals. Female circumcision, removing the clitoris, would be more equivalent to cutting off your whole glans penis, not just trimming the flesh around it --- a far more drastic imposition.

How many african boys die due this process? Quite the drastic imposition to them then.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[CycleMan]

So it was nothing to do with faith, your parents made a medical decision? Elective surgery that has debatable benefits and which addresses problems that most people never encounter and which are almost impossible to predict in infants isn't a very sensible decision, considering the risks and doubts over the long term effects.

Science has since learned more and therefore the aggregate data and expectations have since changed; it was previously thought to be more beneficial than it is thought to be now. Your argument applies to future decisions, and is invalid to his situation or his parents. Please do not insult them for acting on the best info they had.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[Anonymous Coward]

It's wrong to pay support to your ex-wife who divorced you because you beat her?

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[bestalexguy]

2- Behaving in a manner that is grossly incompatible with the office. The obvious example here is Bill Clinton.

You're already on the tricky one in point two. What's obvious for you might not be for others. Bill Clinton's cheating behavior was child's play compared to JFK's, to name one. But when the big dogs start barking the whole Land of Freedom barks. And when they don't, no Chihuahua does.

Coming to Tricky Baracky, do you really think that private sexual behavior is less compatible with the office than, say, keep on talking in an official occasion during the Queen's Anthem, being hushed by her in front of everyone and thus becoming the laughing stock of ... well, anyone who cares to notice? Trained waiters know better. Is there a minimum competence level which is compatible with "the office"? Does this level include the oratorical ability not to talk folly in case of teleprompter malfunction? We all know this guy isn't smarter than Bush II, but "we give a breathalyzer to asthmatic children in the ER", for fuck's sake!?.

But I truly admire the US ruling class artfulness in choosing a guy who's so hard to hate or even criticize for any fool around the world (Benghazi and Snowdengate under Romney, go figure ...).

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[femtobyte]

That is a practice I would consider problematic. Yes, there's a big difference between a surgical operation in sanitary hospital conditions, and sending a teenager out into the wilderness to get their dick chopped by a rusty ceremonial blade so they can prove their manliness by toughing out the pain and blood loss (and not dying of infection). But, even that procedure still provides a better chance of surviving and being sexually functional than its female counterparts.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[Anonymous Coward]

even if it hadnt been a joke, it was still funny.
the replies below it, less so. it went too far when it had become a "serious discussion" about how noticing a cultural difference may or not be racist.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[Anonymous Coward]

im with you here, i go to SK often, and love the culture/people/food/environment/etc. however you do have weird "freedom" related stuff like the government blocking porn sites.
maybe it all evens out in the end.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[tlhIngan]

OK, an airline isn't a military institution, but still. The 'chain of command' theory of management is hardly unique to Asia.

It depends.

In North America, a lot of pilots are civilians who enter the airlines - because in North America, we have an affordable air system (General Aviation). In Europe, it's expensive, so only the rich can afford to fly GA. In Asia, it's unheard of (China's pretty much only got a handful of GA allowed airports).

As civilian pilots, it's a lot easier to be "flat" and say that everyone is responsible for the safety of the flight above all - the captain is just whoever occupies the left seat, but all is responsible. This is the basis of what we call today "Cockpit Resource Management", aka CRM. In any emergency, a skillful pilot flying (captain, copilot, whoever) will delegate tasks to everyone else (which also includes ATC and everyone who can help). The "Miracle on the Hudson" is a very stunning recent example of this.

But in Asia, this is not the case. In fact, the only way to fly in most countries is to join the military. As such, the national airlines are almost all pulled from ex-military pilots (they do poach a few civilian pilots from other countries). So now, you have established a military hierarchy in the cockpit. So the captain may have been a captain before leaving, and the copilot may be a Lt., and even though the copilot may have more experience in the plane, Captain trumps Lt., and military rank trumps all. The captain is "untouchable" for the flight and what he says is law.

EVEN. IF. HE. IS. WRONG.

It wasn't too long ago that even North American pilots were like this - the left seater trumps all. However, a brilliant set of realizations 50 years ago brought forth CRM and it took a few years to retrain everyone into this new line of thinking. It still did happen now and then, but frequency dropped significantly. These days, it's expected and taught, even to the single engine Cessna pilot - because the "C" can also mean "crew" - if you have passengers, have them keep a look out as well to ensure safety of flight.

Re: I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[WoOS]

> Needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few - Spock

Although this statement can be considered true most of the times, it is also an extremely dangerous statement ..... when made by one of the many.
Follow it too much and you will set yourself up for ridicule by people of other cultural backgrounds how you couldn't see the murder of a minority coming.

BTW, Spock said it as member of the few.

Re: I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[ScottCooperDotNet]

Or the one. - Kirk

Each culture and group has its own rules. I've found Russians are blunter than most Americans, on average, and value clarity over feelings.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[Anonymous Coward]

Some cultures mutilate girl's genitals in order to...
make them... uhh, I am not sure why, but they do it.

In the serious cases they cut out the clit so that the girls will not
enjoy sex as much. The idea is that they will then be less likely to
cheat on their husbands. Beyond the control-of-wife issue perhaps it
means that the family can command a better dowry? So it's win-win.
Just not for the girl, but her interests are not considered in the
equation.

In other cases it is a small ceremonial cut and not much more damaging
than the male version.

They are wrong.

Yup.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[Anonymous Coward]

According to my Indian friends, when they go home to visit relatives the traffic drives on whatever side of the road they happen to feel like today.

I've been to India, and I can guarantee you that it's true.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[RazzleFrog]

You keep saying it is not constitutional but are you a constitutional lawyer?

And if all three say it isn't unconstitutional then it isn't unconstitutional. You disagreeing with it (and I actually disagree with it, too) doesn't make it unconstitutional.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[RazzleFrog]

Why should the president be silent during the Queen's Anthem? She is a worthless figurehead. Let the brits laugh at him with their ridiculous attachment to the old bird.

And oh please - there are volumes of books filled with Bush quotes. Is there even enough to fill one with Obama's gaffs? And do you really believe that Benghazi and Snowden would haven't happened under Romney? Seriously? You think those had anything to do with the President?

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[HornWumpus]

Winston Churchill: 'We have a cultural tradition of hanging men who burn women to death.' In ref to Indian practices of burning widows.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[dbIII]

Your civilian pilot example ("Miracle on the Hudson") was a military pilot for many years.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[HornWumpus]

If you can only think of one way to spell a word you have no imagination.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[Anonymous Coward]

Any cultural expectations which cause unnecessary death and suffering are fundamentally flawed and should be eliminated. People should be smart enough to question things, not just blindly follow what they've been taught ESPECIALLY when doing so is likely to be detrimental or cause death.

So, I assume you are an American? When will your country eliminate religion? Ever heard of "faith healing"? Isn't withholding modern medicine to sick kids/adults "likely to be detrimental or cause death"?

How about your country's cultural expectation to own guns? Or your country's military-industrial complex? How many deaths have your country's endless wars caused?

It is easy to criticize other country/culture's short-comings while ignoring what is happening in your own neighbors, but other people would rightly see through your hypocrisy pretty quickly.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[Anonymous Coward]

As a member of the oppressed class, for once, I don't feel particularly oppressed.

Everything works just great. Sex is awesome. Stuff stays clean. Looks better. If that's "mutilation", then bring on some mutilation.

So you just proved the point. Who is anyone to say which culture is right or wrong?

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[quantaman]

His opinion is based on logic and common sense...

The idea that respect for your elders should be given priority even when doing so results in the death of hundreds of people (some of whom may actually be older than you) is utterly ridiculous. It basically amounts to mass murder.

Any cultural expectations which cause unnecessary death and suffering are fundamentally flawed and should be eliminated. People should be smart enough to question things, not just blindly follow what they've been taught ESPECIALLY when doing so is likely to be detrimental or cause death.

This is not racism so much as anti-stupidity.

And if you believe that aspects of culture should be preserved and protected even when they are clearly detrimental, consider that many cultures are or have been extremely racist and have often taught that members of other races or religions are inferior and should be converted, enslaved or wiped out. If you believe that cultural flaws like this should be changed, then surely you must accept that things like blindly respecting your elders without questioning them are also wrong.

I haven't read the chapter but I'm guessing the problem wasn't that pilot was about to plunge the plane into the ground but the co-pilot didn't say anything because it would be disrespectful. It was that the pilot would make a poor decision, one that was defensible but probably increased the risk some minuscule amount, and the co-pilot didn't feel comfortable enough to argue with him so the poor decision stood. The median effect of this is nothing, but over enough flights a few of them are going to crash.

American's aren't immune to this. The cultural belief that Americans are the world's saviours was at least partially responsible for the Iraq war, xenophobia towards other cultures helps fuel Islamic extremism, being overly accepting of other cultures legitimizes some very barbaric cultural practices, and celebrity culture is responsible for anti-vaxx, alternative health nuts, and Snooki.

Culture is a collection of heuristics about how to behave, there's a lot of times where excessive respect for your elders works very well, it turns out that flying airplanes is not one of them.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[Anonymous Coward]

Thus, the impact of female circumcision is nearly incomparably worse than the effects of foreskin removal.

Female circumcision is the removal of the clitoral hood, which is a much less severe procedure than the complete removal of the clitoris, and more closely analogous to foreskin removal. Note that "less severe" does not mean "it's okay" - we quite rightly outlaw such mutilation of a non-consenting subject. (We don't even permit the removal of a child's healthy appendix, which has a clear medical benefit.) But we ought to forbid it for both sexes.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[Anonymous Coward]

All of these little decisions are already ingrained into Americans. We know culturally how to speak up and raise an issue.

You mean, like the hundreds of other NSA employees that have spoken up and raised an issue about the massive illegal monitoring of American citizens? Oh wait, only ONE person stood up.

Or you mean, like the horde of journalists, military and law enforcement personnel (i.e. those in power) who spoke up and raised an issue about Obama trying to catch Snowden no matter what? Oh wait, I don't see any.

Or like all those working in intelligence spoken up and raise an issue when GW Bush started a war with Iraq over non-existence WMD? You catch the drift by now? Yeah, nobody spoke up.

While YOU might think Americans "culturally" would speak up and raise an issue, an objective review would tell you, Americans only "speak up and raise an issue" when their own interest and worldview is threatened, such as poor economy or gay marriage.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[dirtyhippie]

Some people believe in moral absolutes. They are wrong.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[nitehawk214]

Most things are not absolute, but some things are.

So which one of my list did you disagree with? Are you a homophobe, a mysnogist, racist, or a religious (or anti-religious) zealot?

Guess who is wrong now.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[ColdSam]

Bingo. It's amazing that 200 other posters in this thread seem to think that any pilot, even a junior Korean pilot, would actually let 200 people due to his respect for authority.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[dryeo]

The problem is that the American Constitution is totally broken and every president (and congress and courts) has to do unconstitutional things. One example is the First Amendment's free speech clause which disallows national secrets, child porn and all kinds of other illegal speech. Combined with the 14th Amendment a country can not operate as all countries need things like military secrets so right from the get go the Constitution has to be disobeyed and you're left with the courts interpreting things like what speech can be deemed illegal when the first amendment is clear, no laws infringing on speech.
The American system is this balancing act, what is actually unconstitutional? With tons of laws, some going back to the beginning, that actually break the constitution. The American people happily accept unconstitutional things like national security secrets, unconstitutional military wings such as the Air Force (how hard would it have been to amend the constitution to allow an air force?). With the American people worshiping the constitution and breaking it how can you expect the President to obey it. Can you imagine the outrage if Obama said that it is unconstitutional to have national secrets? Refused to prosecute child porn? Disbanded the Air Force?
A constitution that can't be obeyed is broken and to expect only some parts to be enforced is also broken.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[medoc]

To add an anecdotic data point, I was circumcized as an adult (male), and if I see a difference at all in terms of sensations, it would be in the direction of (very minor) improvement.

I concur in saying that to put male and female circumcisions on the same plane is preposterous, the intentions and consequences are close to opposite. The term "female circumcision" is misleading and should not be used at all. "Excision" is used in French for the female mutilation.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[Bartles]

All that multi-cultural bullshit aside. In this instance; the cockpit of an airplane that is about to crash, pointing out to the elder pilot that he is about to kill 300 people is clearly superior than respecting his wisdom by remaining silent.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[Comrade Ogilvy]

(Responded to wrong comment. See sibling to your comment.)

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[Jawnn]

I'm sorry but "cultural dynamics" is a poor fig leaf for what, admittedly on the surface, appears to be gross incompetence. Maintaining proper airspeed on approach is flight school 101, not a fucking Korean costume drama. I hope for the pilots' sake they come up w/a better reason for this tragic event.

Again, you missed the point. No one disputes that the PF had the responsibility to maintain a safe airspeed. Between the two pilots (PF and his instructor) they certainly should have caught this and corrected. They did not. Nevertheless, TFA correctly observes that, in the past, Korean cultural mores have contributed to this very thing; failure to identify and correct, and speculates that this may have been the case aboard Asiana 214. That is not an excuse or "fig leaf" as you put it. No one has suggested any such thing. It is a thoughtful examination of another factor that may have contributed to the crash. To ignore this, especially given the fact that it was clearly such a contributing factor in the past, would be simply negligent.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[DutchUncle]

It *is* relevant - an American trainee might well ask his elder/senior "Hey, shouldn't we be going faster?" where these folks might have hesitated until they were 1000% certain (yes, I meant a thousand, it's called "hyperbole"). During landing, which is essentially controlled flight into terrain, seconds matter.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[Anonymous Coward]

"Wrong" is not an objective concept. Neither is "right". You are correct in referring to them as beliefs. Anyone else's beliefs are just as valid as mine or yours, but they are just opinions, not truths.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[Tamerlin]

If you don't choose the lives of your passengers, then you are immediately disqualified from being a pilot, regardless of race or gender.

That this should be a qualifying attribute should be a no-brainer.

Agreed. If Koreans disagree, then tough. Either way, they lose, because no one in their right mind would fly a plan piloted someone who fails that standard.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[Anonymous Coward]

Q: When does a 'black man' become a 'nigger'?

A: When he leaves the room.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[HornWumpus]

Giving a little aid to which ever side is losing now is a good strategy if both sides of a conflict are your enemies. Like Iraq and Iran in the 80s.

I thing restarting that war is the unmentionable reason Bush went into Iraq.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[HornWumpus]

I can make 'sir' an insult via context and tone.

In many languages your whole grammar changes when speaking to a 'superior'.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[RockDoctor]

They must have been high-grade idiots to manage that.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[RockDoctor]

Some cultures mutilate girl's genitals in order to... make them... uhh, I am not sure why, but they do it.

The logic, according to a castrated hooker I was fucking one time in Abu Dhabi, is that by ensuring that the woman doesn't have most of the equipment necessary to enjoy having sex, then she's unlikely to actually go out and want to have sex with anyone, including people who aren't her husband. She'd been done when she was 8, by her mother and aunt. She got more pleasure from being fucked anally than vaginally.

Just because it's a horrible mutilation doesn't mean the the people doing it are insensitive, unthinking or illogical. They just have different opinions to you about the value of women.

There is a joke about the Arabs which is popular in the oilfield stating that "a boy for pleasure, a woman for children and a goat for warmth" ; while it's an oversimplification, there is certainly a basis in truth. The charges at the brothels tell you what the relative values are - compliant (young) men cost more than women of any age ; "swept" or "unswept" doesn't make a difference (the prostitute's opinion on the transaction isn't considered important).

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[RockDoctor]

We can last longer in bed because we're less sensitive, erm, down there.

How do you know? The only person I know who was circumcised as an aware person (rather than an infant) was done before he lost his virginity, so he had no opportunity to compare the two circumstances. I suppose it is possible that there are people who've got the appropriate experience, but I've never (knowingly) met one.

Re:I remember being puzzled by that chapter

[dirtyhippie]

So because I don't believe in absolutes I must be some sort of bigot? Jesus, pull your head out of your ass. The air is much fresher out here - seriously.

“The fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt.” - Bertrand Russel.

Have some patience

[Ambitwistor]

It's starting to seem likely that there was gross human error involved, but let's wait to see what else comes out from the investigation before blaming it all on East Asian culture.

Re:Have some patience

[Crimey McBiggles]

"Korean culture" does not equate to "East Asian culture". The cultures in that region share a common influence, but there are subtle yet important differences.

Re:Have some patience

[slashmydots]

Ah, you're right. Let's take the CNN approach of evidence and logic and science points to one thing so far but it's impolite so bury it and try to prove it wrong so as not to be seen as racist. Now THAT is the scientific method.

Re:Have some patience

[spacefight]

The NTSB press video gives a first glampse on what had happened - the last part of the flight is referenced at apx. 22:00 video time.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9MTLlzf8Co

Re:Have some patience

[Anonymous Coward]

> "Korean culture" does not equate to "East Asian culture".

That's right, it's a subset. Redundant.

Re:Have some patience

[Anonymous Coward]

Or we could take the History Channel approach and blame it on aliens.

Re:Have some patience

[Ambitwistor]

What "evidence and logic and science" points to the involvement of hierarchical culture in the command decisions of Asiana Flight 214?

Re:Have some patience

[pspahn]

That's racist.

Re:Have some patience

[Anonymous Coward]

Way to miss the point there, crimey!

Assuming you are from the US:

Is 'lack of reading comprehension' a North American, or simply United States trait?

Re:Have some patience

[Anonymous Coward]

You know, I'm not saying the crash was caused by aliens, but it was aliens.

but, back to root cause

[cellocgw]

Is the 777 one of those planes which cannot be landed fully automatically? What are the current FAA rules about auto-landings? I thought planes were generally supposed to use manual landing only under severe weather or other concerns.

Re:but, back to root cause

[spacefight]

Normally you would intercept the localizer (lateral guidance), then the glide slope signal (altitude guidance) via auto pilot and then disconnect the auto pilot shortly before landing and flare manually.

On this day, the glide slope signal was not available due to maintenance work and therefore, the pilot flying (PF) needed to fly the approach and landing manually - which he fucked up.

More details on this article from AeroInside.com Coming back to your question - auto land needs to demonstrated per plane on a continous base, e.g. monthly - no matter what weather is.

Re:but, back to root cause

[Anonymous Coward]

There are no auto-landings on Galactica. Captain's orders.

Re:but, back to root cause

[QuantumFlux]

It's actually the other way around: autoland is typically only used in extremely low visibility (typically bad weather) situations. In most cases, a pilot can land a plane more accurately and smoothly as the human, visually, can account for far more external variables than the autopilot computer.

Just not in this case, apparently...

Re:but, back to root cause

[Anonymous Coward]

IIRC the San Francisco airport is normally fully equipped to allow CAT III ILS autopilot systems to land planes nearly automatically although a pilot's judgement and skill is obviously still needed to operate it.

However the news reports after the crash were saying that due to construction the airport wasn't properly equipped to provide functionality for these systems.

Re:but, back to root cause

[MisterSquid]

According to MetaFilter user backseatpilot:

According to the recorded meteorological reports (METARs), the weather was good and the airport was conducting visual operations, which means the pilots use their view out the cockpit window to approach and land. However, the NTSB is probably going to be investing [sic] this Notice to Airmen (NOTAM):

06/005 (A1056/13) - NAV ILS RWY 28L GP U/S. 01 JUN 14:00 2013 UNTIL 22 AUG 23:59 2013. CREATED: 01 JUN 13:40 2013

The Instrument Landing System (ILS) for runway 28L has been out of service since June 1. What that means for a pilot flying is unclear right now; if the pilots were trying to use the ILS as supplementary guidance for their visual approach it may have simply not worked (red flag shows up on the panel and no information is given), or it may give erroneous information with no indication that the system is not working. I can see a situation (and this is PURE SPECULATION) with a flight crew with little experience flying into SFO, not checking the NOTAMs or forgetting them, flying the approach with an ILS giving false readings, getting distracted in the cockpit for one reason or another, and suddenly half the plane is floating in the bay.

My sense (IANAP) is an automatic landing would not have been possible given that the Instrument Landing System for runway 28L has been out os service since 1 June.

Re:but, back to root cause

[UnknowingFool]

From what I read the pilot landing had little time on the 777 (though he had 10,000 hours overall) and was actually practicing/training landing the jet. He was being supervised by another pilot who had much more experience on the 777. It would defeat the purpose to use auto-land. Also I thought auto-land was used for low and zero-visibility not the other way around. We don't know the whole story but normally the pilot not landing is supposed to be monitoring the instrumentation to ensure that the speed, altitude, etc are all within parameters while the other pilot is handling controls. In reference to the culture situation, may be the pilot landing was actually senior in age/experience overall and the other pilot did not feel he could correct someone senior.

Re:but, back to root cause

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a good article about it:

http://www.ryot.org/instrument-landing-system-had-been-shut-down-on-runway-28-in-san-francisco-crash/250033

Re:but, back to root cause

[TWiTfan]

pilot flying (PF) needed to fly the approach and landing manually - which he fucked up.

And I would have gotten away with it too, if it weren't for you kids and your lousy seawall!

Re:but, back to root cause

[spacefight]

My sense (IANAP) is an automatic landing would not have been possible given that the Instrument Landing System for runway 28L has been out os service since 1 June.

Correct.
Auto landing uses the full ILS/MLS bundled with a radar altimeter for even more precise altitude information above ground prior to touchdown. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autoland

Re:but, back to root cause

[spacefight]

Or it would have done a splash down as did a B738 from Lions Air just recently in Indonesia...

Re:but, back to root cause

[Anonymous Coward]

In order for autoland to work, the glide slope at the airport must be working. The glide slope (ILS - Instrument Landing System) is a radio beam that the autoland system follows in order to find the runway.
The technical term for autoland is a CAT III approach. The notices for the airport show that the ILS/glide slope was not operating, so autoland was impossible on that runway.

Personally, I think the fact that this system, the backup visual system (PAPI - Precision Approach Path Indicator) and the Distance Measuring Equipment beacons were all out of service contributed a lot to the accident.
The FAA published NOTAMS about all of those items being offline for runway 28L where they crashed. Some journalists have asked about the PAPI's status at the time of crash, and the airport officials have been pretty cagey about it.
Technically, those aids are not 'required' but they are valuable, especially for a person landing for the first time at a given airport.
Couple all those navigational aids being offline, with a pilot that is not used to the visual picture of that airport, and the likelihood of error increases. It could be that the pilot flying lined up on the edge of what they saw, which was the seawall, instead of lining up on the runway edge, fifty feet further up.
At 150 MPH over calm water and a clear day, with no trees or buildings to judge height by, it's not a big stretch.

Also, large airplanes need more runway to stop, so the common wisdom is to land close to the start of the runway so you can stop the plane without too much drama.

One point to consider: Seaplane operators are warned to be very careful on pretty days, since it is difficult to judge altitude during landing on smooth water, but easy if there is a little wind to ruffle the surface of the water.

Re:but, back to root cause

[Russ1642]

Commander's orders, and later Admiral's orders.

Re:but, back to root cause

[cfsops]

Yes it can be landed in that manner. However, to do so requires a working Instrument Landing System for the runway on which the plane intends to land. In this case, it appears that at least part of the ILS system for runway 28L, the glide slope part, was not working, (due to maintenance). This part of the landing system tells the pilot how high the plane should be at a given distance from the runway. It creates a sort-of invisible slide (usually 3 degrees) that the plane flies down, with the bottom of the slide being near the end of the runway, (specifically in/near the touch-down zone or TDZ). In this case, the pilots apparently were flying the approach manually, so they had to judge for themselves how to descend to the runway. All pilots are trained to do this, so it's not some mysterious procedure that only a few know how to do. The problem in this case is that the plane was descending to a point well short of the runway, a point in the water, and the question is why did the pilot(s) flying the approach not realize and act on the error until about 7 seconds before impact, which was too late to do anything about it. In terms of the appropriateness of manually flying the approach, the weather conditions at San Francisco on Saturday are probably the most suitable.

Re:but, back to root cause

[some old guy]

Or been like Capt. "I fucked up." Asoh of JAL Flight 2 at the same airport and runway (28L I believe).

Re:but, back to root cause

[Teancum]

Of course the automatic landing system of SFO was also turned off at the time. There was some pundit speculation this might have been the cause of the accident, but of course pilots are also supposedly trained not to rely upon those systems all of the time either. It was a clear day near noon at a big airport that had other systems in place to help land airplanes.

The point of the original article is that there should have been more communication between the pilot and co-pilot on the theory that having two pilots miss something important like the end of the runway and being able to make a proper landing is highly unlikely. Relying on having just one pilot who is an arrogant jerk forcing everybody else in the cockpit to defer to his judgement alone is likely to cause some accidents like this.

Re:but, back to root cause

[cwebster]

The glideslope is not a "automatic landing system". In any case, if its not working you look out the window assisted by an array of white and red lights next to the runway to fly the glidepath visually.

Re:but, back to root cause

[dcw3]

For someone attempting to become certified on a "type" of aircraft, they wouldn't be using it. Also, on a bright, clear, basically perfect day, there's not a reason to do so. Flying low and slow on a visual approach is inexcusable. Unless VASI (visual approach slope indicator...basically lights from the runway that show you above, below, or on the proper glideslope) was also down, they should have easily seen that they were at an improper angle. And with around ten thousand hours of experience, the visual cues would have been obvious. This is something you learn as a student pilot before you solo with 10-20 hours. I'd love to hear the voice recorders, as I'm wondering if they were even awake (crews do sleep on long trips) in time for the landing.

Re:but, back to root cause

[cwebster]

99% of landings are done manually. Contrary, you only use autoland when you have to because of weather conditions or it needs to be demonstrated for aircraft currency.

Re:but, back to root cause

[fustakrakich]

On the squawk list: Autolander touches down extremely hard

Response from the mechanic: This aircraft not equipped with autolander

Re:but, back to root cause

[Anonymous Coward]

However, radar altimeters are not completely reliable and the autoland system can be confused when it gets conflicting information.
For example, the Turkish Airlines 1951 crash near Amsterdam was caused by a radar altimeter failing and outputting zero altitude,
then the autoland system deduced that the plane had landed and throttled down the engines, causing the speed to go down and
the plane stalling and crashing before the runway was reached.
There are many similarities to this accident. The plane was initially too high, the pilots had to descend to the glideslope so they
did not notice that the plane was descending further. They also found that when the stall warning was issued, there was not enough
time to recover as the altitude was already very low (although much higher than in this accident).
I wonder what the investigation will yield. In the Turkish Airlines crash there were lots of comments that "this would not have happened
with an Airbus plane", and it was explained that Boeing has a different design philosophy. Did it cause this crash as well?

Re:but, back to root cause

[Anonymous Coward]

had little time on the 777 (though he had 10,000 hours overall)

Correct. He has 10000 hours in other planes (inc 747) and he'll have thousands of hours in a simulator and have passed the 777 exams in said simulator, but he only had 48 hours in the real thing. Inescapable fact - everyone has to do something the first time. The modern simulators are now so close to the real thing there should be no difference though. Hell the parts from the simulator can be used as spares for the real thing, that's how similar they are!

The other pilot had over 1000 hours on the 777 and 12000 hours total. He also had all the same controls... even if the pilot's lack of experience was an issue the copilot should have spotted the issue in plenty of time. The problem was their approach speed was dropping far too quickly and they didn't try increasing it until it was too late

We'll have to wait for the investigation to see the full facts of why that happened.

Re:but, back to root cause

[cfsops]

especially for a person landing for the first time at a given airport.

This was not the flying pilot's first time landing at KSFO. It was his first time landing a B777 at KSFO. Though the training pilot had only 40-something hours flying the B777, he's been an airline pilot for nearly 20 years and, therefore, has many thousands of hours flying jets, including the B747.

I'm not trying to apologize for the guy; he (and the others in the pointy-end) fucked up huge and two people died and others are probably permanently injured because of it. Let's try to get it right for their sakes, if nothing else.

It could be that the pilot flying lined up on the edge of what they saw, which was the seawall, instead of lining up on the runway edge, fifty feet further up.

Which is why you don't "target" the edge of the runway, but rather the excessively clearly marked TDZ. This airplane was not coming down "a few feet" short, it was coming down many hundreds of feet short.

Re:but, back to root cause

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Did the airport administrator tell the captain "Lee, I am your father"?

Re:but, back to root cause

[Anonymous Coward]

Quote:In any case, if its not working you look out the window assisted by an array of white and red lights next to the runway to fly the glidepath visually.

Yes, but that system was turned off also, see the FAA NOTAM database. The airport officials have been really reluctant to admit to this little fact.

Re:but, back to root cause

[tompaulco]

I just want to point out that 48 hours in a 777 is like 10 hours in a regional jet. In 48 hours, he may have performed maybe 5 takeoffs and landings since most of the time in a 777 is spent doing next to nothing.

Re:but, back to root cause

[T.E.D.]

Awesomely informative post. One thing you did fail to mention though is that the pilot, while quite experienced overall, only had something like 45 hours experience flying this plane. Given the length of trans-pacific flights, that means he'd only flown this plane a bare handful of times at most. Add to that the fact (you mentioned) that he was attempting an unusual manual landing. Almost certianly he'd never done this before, outside of a simulator. Hopefully he'd done it a few times in a simulator at least, but the reported rediculouly low airspeed (a bit more than half the miniumum required), makes one wonder.

We don't know the ultimate cause yet, but whatever it ends up being, it certianly looks like that pilot could have done with a lot more training on that plane. And I'm not just saying this because my employer makes most of its money selling flight training to commercial pilots. Nope, not at all...

Re:but, back to root cause

[Anonymous Coward]

The VASI (lights) was not turned off. The ILS (radar) was.

Re:but, back to root cause

[DieByWire]

Is the 777 one of those planes which cannot be landed fully automatically? What are the current FAA rules about auto-landings? I thought planes were generally supposed to use manual landing only under severe weather or other concerns.

The 777 most certainly can do what's known as an 'autoland.' However, it needs a fully operational ILS (Instrument Landing System) to do it. The vertical guidance (glideslope) portion of the ILS for runway 28L was out of service due to the runway construction, so an autoland was not possible.

Autolands are also the exception, not the norm. They are generally done when the visibility is so poor that the pilot can not adequately see the runway, or when maintenance asks the pilot to perform one to periodically verify autopilot performance. Autolands require that the ILS signal not be interfered with at all which puts some additional restrictions on ATC.

Re:but, back to root cause

[Anonymous Coward]

T,he 777 as in other similar aircraft, you need a functioning glide slope to do a fully auto land; which they didn't have. But when you can see the runway 99/100 pilots would land by hand. Pride? I must have had a lot of pride. But really how do you stay in practice if you let the computers land all the time? NOW to the main question; the info I last heard was that the First Officer was flying the aircraft. I can't imagine how too much reluctance to question the Capt would be an issue when the F/O was flying. I am not posting as "A Coward" I retired flying Capt 777.

Re:but, back to root cause

[sfm]

But couldn't they have used the VASI (Visual Approach Slope Indicator) lights as a backup to indicate the correct glide slope ?

Re:but, back to root cause

[Kagato]

Most international wide body planes have full blown Cat III Auto-land system. Most domestic planes do not have the capability as it's a fairly costly system. The big reason for having them is to use the system is bad weather. If you're flying a plane for 10-12 hours the weather can change significantly. You may not have a lot of diversion options.

It would not be unusual for a pilot to land the plane visual given the rather nice weather and visibility at the time of the crash.

Re:but, back to root cause

[retep]

If you don't practice manual landings you won't be able to manual land in severe weather.

Re:but, back to root cause

[Anachragnome]

Root cause? How about pattern failures?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2357585/Crash-landing-San-Francisco-mirrors-Boeing-777-crash-London-Heathrow-years-ago.html

Did it occur to anyone that the media, government and Boeing might be trying to sweep this under the carpet? After all, Boeing hasn't been having very good luck lately. Problems with the 787 are killing them financially.

Re:but, back to root cause

[Anonymous Coward]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan_Airlines_Flight_2

Re:but, back to root cause

[NeverVotedBush]

If you look at the vertical speed as reported on flightaware.com, and map out his positions on something like Google Maps, you can see the pilot in command was hunting the glide slope and landing configuration all the way down. His vertical speed is all over the place. My brother is an airline pilot and he nailed it right out of the chute - Korean pilot and the issue of "face". There were three other pilots on that plane and none spoke up even as warnings were popping up on instrument after instrument as the PIC kept missing the numbers and going slower and slower.

There is also an instrument that can give a virtual ILS approach to the pilot had he bothered to use it. Regardless, there were VASI lights showing him all red as he flew his approach. The guy had warning after warning and let the plane get ahead of him and too slow to do anything but try to make it over the sea wall before slamming into the pavement. He didn't even manage that.

And for all the face-saving the other pilots up at the front of the plane were doing, they are now responsible for the loss of the plane, scores of debilitating injuries, and two deaths.

Re:but, back to root cause

[Anonymous Coward]

Normally you would intercept the localizer (lateral guidance), then the glide slope signal (altitude guidance) via auto pilot and then disconnect the auto pilot shortly before landing and flare manually.

On most planes, yes. It's a 777 though, so auto-landing includes the flare.

Re:but, back to root cause

[gsnedders]

The AAIB (Air Accident Investigation Board) ruled that was down to Rolls Royce - down to a British supplier. They weren't trying to save face then (they put the blame squarely on a company in the same country!), and given the Asiana aircraft had P&W engines, it seems highly unlikely to be related.

Re:but, back to root cause

[couchslug]

"On this day, the glide slope signal was not available due to maintenance work"

Interesting. A requirement for redundant glide slope transmitters would seem to be in order. If you only have one and it shits the bed during foul weather at night, that's not good new.

Bullshit

[vikingpower]

Indian culture is hierarchical, and deference to your superiors counts enormously. Yet, Indian airlines do not have worse-than-average crash rates.

Re:Bullshit

[nine-times]

There could be other aspects of Indian cultural interaction that act as a spoiler to the effect.

Re:Bullshit

[jkflying]

But in Indian culture the hierarchy is class based, not age based. Thus, two pilots are always equal (or at least close to it) by the fact that they are both pilots, irrespective of whether one is much older than the other.

Re:Bullshit

[TWiTfan]

IIRC, Gladwell's contention was that the problem wasn't just deference, it was primarily a lack of communication. Not only are you supposed to be deferential to your betters, you're not even supposed to TALK to them (even in an emergency).

Re:Bullshit

[Anonymous Coward]

Indian culture is hierarchical, and deference to your superiors counts enormously. Yet, Indian airlines do not have worse-than-average crash rates.

[citation needed]

That's the country where you don't actually need a pilot's license to fly an airliner, and you can leave flight attendants at the controls while you go for a nap in first class, isn't it?

A quick Google search finds claims of Indian airlines with accident rates more than 200% worse than average.

Re:Bullshit

[Anonymous Coward]

Gladwell connects the micro-culture of a particular flight crew in a particular airline with the macro-culture of a country to make sweeping generalizations. It's very silly.

Re:Bullshit

[Crimey McBiggles]

Calling bullshit on your "bullshit" argument. You can't equate Indian culture with Korean culture just because they share deference and hierarchy. The two cultures are based around different ideology, language, and social norms. In Korea for example, age plays a significant role where one falls on the hierarchy, and language is often indirect. Think about how we speak English, or how Latin is spoken and you get a feel for how the Indic side of the Indo-Europoean spectrum works. Korean however, doesn't translate as directly, partially because politeness is much more important in the spoken language, but mostly because it's not directly related to our language, so they figure out different ways to solve the problem of communication. Reading the article, I've learned that the problems experienced arose because the co-pilots weren't acting as equals - sounds like a communications problem to me, possibly unique (but not limited to) Korean culture.

Re:Bullshit

[VIPERsssss]

While you make a good point, how do you explain the reduction in accidents after KA addressed the specific behavior? Coincidence?

Re:Bullshit

[FuzzNugget]

Maybe their superiors are less incompetent, maybe they've had better luck or maybe the subtle nuances differ from those of Korea.

I recall watching a documentary on this exact issue several years ago. In these types of cultures whose traditions of deference to superiors has been ingrained over hundreds of years, when a junior knows something is up that the superior officer fails to notice, the junior will neglect to call him on it. This *has* resulted in deadly crashes.

Maybe equipment failure contributed to the problem, but so would this type neglect. Whatever the principle cause, removing any one of these factors could have resulted in a safe landing.

Re:Bullshit

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly. "Sir, we are coming in too low and too slow. Kindly do the needful."

Re:Bullshit

[Mike_EE_U_of_I]

> Indian culture is hierarchical, and deference to your superiors counts enormously. Yet, Indian airlines do not have worse-than-average crash rates.

    Well yeah, that's true as long as we ignore reality.

http://www.airdisaster.com/statistics/

    According to this website, Indian airlines accident rates are spectacularly higher than western airlines. Air India's accident rate is even higher than KAL's, which is the example airline for Gladwell's theory.

Re:Bullshit

[Anonymous Coward]

There is also an element of consensus building in Indian culture. So although the younger pilot will likely defer to the older pilots decision making all other things being equal, the older pilot will likely consult before making a decision.

Re:Bullshit

[hey!]

Having led development teams with native-born Indian engineers on them, I can confirm that Indian cultural diversity notwithstanding, deference to superiors is a big deal with many people brought up there. That's neither good, nor bad. It's just different. Where problems arise is when people don't recognize that there are differences and fail take those differences into account.

As an American, I don't feel insulted when a subordinate questions my ideas, in fact I rely on them challenging me. What took me awhile to figure out was that my Indian employees wouldn't stand up and contradict me, especially in public. In a American that would be cowardly, but that's because we communicate in what amounts to be a different social language from Indians. I soon learned that you have to manage employees from deferential cultures differently; you've got to spend a lot of personal time together having quiet chats, maybe go out after work for a couple of beers. And you have to recalibrate your trouble sensors when dealing with deferential employees. If you give them something resembling an order, if they do anything short of hopping right to it with open enthusiasm, it's time to have a quiet, tactfully executed one-on-one.

This is not a worse way of doing things, it's just different, and it has its advantages and disadvantages. For me the toughest thing was I had to be careful about thinking out loud -- at least at first -- because my guys took every that came out of my mouth so seriously. At first, I found my Indian subordinates to be frustratingly passive. They found me (no doubt) to be overbearing, insensitive, rash and pig-headed. This was all just miscommunication, because we all were acting and interpreting each others' actions through the lenses of different cultural conventions. In the end, we did what intelligent people of different cultures do when working with each other: we developed a way of doing things that combined what we felt was the best of both cultures.

And that's an important lesson: people aren't culturally programmed automatons. We are capable of thinking and adapting. People in an egalitarian culture are perfectly capable of coming together and working coherently as a team, although the process may look ugly and chaotic to outsiders. People in cultures with deference to elders are perfectly capable of reporting unwelcome news to a superior.

So if a junior pilot didn't communicate an emergency situation to a senior pilot, *then somebody on that team screwed up*. They weren't doomed to crash by cultural programming. There may be nuances of their culture which contributed to the disaster, but that's bound to be true of human error in every culture.

I won't go so far as to say that *all* cultural differences are superficial. But I think many differences are more superficial than a casual outsider might suspect. That outsider might look at something like the reluctance of a subordinate to question a superior's instructions and assume that the subordinate *can't*. That's simply not true. On one level, the shared cultural understanding of the subordinate and the boss provides them with ways of communication that escape the outsider's understanding. But more importantly, people aren't mindless cultural automatons. If his boss is about to stall your plane on the approach to the runway, I don't think a Korean co-pilot is simply going to stand by silently. I suppose it is possible that he might be inclined to wait a few seconds longer than an American co-pilot, but if that endangers the plane then that is a mistake, period. A Korean airline is perfectly capable of training the co-pilots to report problems promptly, just as an American airline can train co-pilots to execute the commander's orders promptly without engaging in an impromptu debate.

Re:Bullshit

[Anonymous Coward]

Well if it's like how Indians run software projects, the plane never leaves the ground.

Outdated.

[hazeii]

>You are obliged to be deferential toward your elders and superiors in a way that would be unimaginable in the U.S

Bzzt - out of date (see what happens if you blow a whistle on your 'elders and superiors' in the US - or indeed in most western governments).

Re:Outdated.

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh wow! It's positively Confucian!

Re:Outdated.

[NatasRevol]

Or 'Snowdenian'.

Re:Deference, No. Massive Drinking, Yes

[beltsbear]

And still land the plane without damaging it or passengers. America F*ck yea!

Re:Deference, No. Massive Drinking, Yes

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Right - Americans certainly wouldn't show inordinate deference to superiors. They just drink 16 rum and diet cokes the night before they fly. http://www.travelandleisure.com/articles/worlds-dumbest-pilots/8

Ouch. You're arguing with drinking against Americans in a comment to an article about pilots from a country where being an alcoholic is almost a job requirement in many corporations? Epic fail.

Korean Air now one of the most safest

[iONiUM]

From wikipedia: The last fatal accident, Korean Air Cargo Flight 8509 in December 1999 led to a review of how Korean cultural attitudes had contributed to its poor crash history. Following the review, Korean Airlines began hiring predominantly Western pilots and since that time safety has greatly improved, and the airline ranks among the best in the 21st century..

It's good they solved it, though it's kind of funny the solution was to hire western pilots..

Re:Korean Air now one of the most safest

[swb]

Maybe it was meant as a way to disrupt the cultural pattern? Mix in some Westerners and break the dynamic.

But maybe there's just a Freakonomics explanation -- Western pilots were safer and more experienced and with the consolidation and labor disruption in the US airline industry just became more available at reasonable prices?

If you were qualified as a 747 captain and either had the job or were more or less sure you would move up soon, it would take a lot of money to get you to leave a US airline and fly for a Korean airline.

But if the airlines were squeezing paychecks, you couldn't move up or got squeezed out in a merger, suddenly a Korean job paying what you would have made sounds pretty good.

And it's a win-win. From the Korean perspective, it may have been cheaper to hire a bunch of Westerners and get up to par quickly than to try to overcome entrenched cultural values, implement new training programs, not to mention risking a few hundred million dollars in crashed planes and lost business.

Re:Korean Air now one of the most safest

[Tim the Gecko]

You should ask the person at p1151-ipbf2702marunouchi.tokyo.ocn.ne.jp who added the comment about Western pilots on July 8th. The NYT citation has no reference to Western pilots. This change is that IP address's sole contribution to Wikipedia.

If something looks strange on Wikipedia, check who added it and when.

Re:Korean Air now one of the most safest

[tompaulco]

It's good they solved it, though it's kind of funny the solution was to hire western pilots..

I'm amazed that fixed anything. I have frequent dealings with Koreans at home, at work and at Church and I can tell you that as far as the culture is concerned, an elder Korean gets first ranking, then younger Korean, then adolescent Koreans, then baby Koreans, and then just below that is an elderly Westerner with a PhD, a Nobel Peace Prize and a half dozen New York Times best sellers.

Re:Korean Air now one of the most safest

[MobyDisk]

Someone already edited the article to remove that statement. It has no citation and is hardly believable.

Re:Korean Air now one of the most safest

[Anonymous Coward]

You misunderstand. The problem is not that the older pilot refuse to listen. The problem is that the younger pilot doesn't dare to speak when he realize something is wrong. Because he has too much of this 'respect'.

Hiring western co-pilots would help in such a situation. They might rank 'low' for being foreigners - but they would not hesitate to speak. An older Korean pilot might be a little surprised by such 'rudeness' - but still react correctly to the message.

Other solutions might be:
1. Pair up pilots of identical age - no problems about 'not TALKING to your senior' then.
2. Educate them better. A young pilot is supposed to speak up when necessary - so that he don't let his senior pilot make embarassing mistakes. That should fit in culturally. (And a really stuck-up senior can always avoid loosing face by claiming he was just testing if the youngster was paying attention or something.)

Re:Korean Air now one of the most safest

[Anonymous Coward]

Note that Korean Air and Asiana are two separate companies...

so what we're saying is true

[nimbius]

TAWS computer: SINK RATE!!
pilot: You're a 777 so that makes you about 18 years old. why dont you show some respect.
TAWS computer: TOO LOW!!! TERRAIN!!
pilot: you kids think you know everything. back in my day we didnt shout at our elders.
TAWS computer: PULL UP!!! PULL UP!!! PULL UP!!!
pilot: get off my damn lawn.

Re:so what we're saying is true

[spacefight]

might be partially true - but the TAWS or GPWS is not giving you too low warnings if the plane is configured for landing (flaps, gear), otherwise you would have aural warnings on every landing.

Re:so what we're saying is true

[cwebster]

The computers will still talk to you, but for other things. "WINDSHEAR" and "GLIDESLOPE" come to mind (yea, I know the glideslope was inop at SFO).

Re:so what we're saying is true

[0123456]

"RETARD" is my favorite.

Re:so what we're saying is true

[Anonymous Coward]

"DONT THINK, DONT THINK" is my favorite.

Filter error: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING.

Re:so what we're saying is true

[Anonymous Coward]

The plane will probably be giving you stall warnings when you're going too slow, though.

Re:so what we're saying is true

[Anonymous Coward]

GPWS was supplanted with Enhanced (EGPWS) in the 90s. While GPWS only used radar altitude rate, EGPWS incorporated knowledge of the airplane's position, flight path, terrain, and the location of runways. EGPWS will in fact give you warnings if you are configured for landing and not in the vicinity of a runway, although in the Asiana case they were probably close enough that it wouldn't.

Not true

[Anonymous Coward]

Indian culture is hierarchical, and deference to your superiors counts enormously. Yet, Indian airlines do not have worse-than-average crash rates.

From this site:

Accident rates:
Air India Rate - 6.82
Korean Air rate - 5.38

Delta Air rate - 0.3

Re:Not true

[camperdave]

6.82 - 5.38 gives a delta of 1.44, not 0.3

Re:Not true

[Anonymous Coward]

Badum tish!

Re:Not true

[gmhowell]

I believe that that is a reference to Delta Air Lines.

Thank God we have Gladwell's 2 cents

[Zlotnick]

Now he can tell us why we should turn back regulation on smoking and give big banks even more money.

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/06/malcolm-gladwell-unmasked-a-look-into-the-life-work-of-americas-most-successful-propagandist.html

And what a crock -- that Koreans would crash a plane because of a respect of hierarchy. This is just racist. Sorry, I take that back. It's just stupid.

Re:Thank God we have Gladwell's 2 cents

[dcw3]

You're jumping to unjust conclusions that this is racist. Please ready my post on Learning to Fly in Korea.

Re:Thank God we have Gladwell's 2 cents

[Anonymous Coward]

So racist that the Koreans themselves changed their training specifically to address this problem after the crash of 8509?

But it is pretty fucking stupid to bring attention to Gladwell as if he figured any of this out on his own.

Re:Thank God we have Gladwell's 2 cents

[Anonymous Coward]

What does this have to do with smoking and banks? Just your stupidity. Your like most people on here, just a stupid little kid poster, go back to the third grade play ground and kiss the ring of BO.

Re:Thank God we have Gladwell's 2 cents

[Capt.Albatross]

And what a crock -- that Koreans would crash a plane because of a respect of hierarchy. This is just racist. Sorry, I take that back. It's just stupid.

If it was just Gladwell making things up as usual, I wouldn't take it very seriously, but the effect showed up in a valid statistical study: crashes are somewhat more likely when the Captain rather than the First Officer is at the controls, even after controlling for factors like the Captain tending to take control in difficult situations. The effect is by no means limited to Korea, or Asia in general. It is least evident in Australia (though the data set there is rather sparse).

No one is suggesting that anyone is making a conscious decision in these cases, but cultural conditioning has more, mostly subconscious, influence on behavior, especially during stress, than most rational people would prefer to believe. In addition, I guess that there would be similar related factors, such as the personalities and mood of the individuals, that might dominate this effect in any given situation.

In this case, the article referenced in the OP has only vague and incomplete information about the ranks, seniority, and experience of the flight crew, and it makes no attempt to consider other reasons for the lack of talk (such as no-one noticing the developing problem, which would be a puzzle, but a different one), so the article looks like idle speculation.

Re:Thank God we have Gladwell's 2 cents

[Anonymous Coward]

Is it racist if Korean Airlines says it?

Corporate culture beats national culture

[Anonymous Coward]

Korean Air fixed its problems a decade ago, not by changing the culture of Korea, but by instituting appropriate policies.

If Asiana hasn't (and that's yet to be established) then that's Asiana's problem, not Korea's.

Re:Corporate culture beats national culture

[Anonymous Coward]

Korean Air fixed its problems a decade ago, not by changing the culture of Korea, but by instituting appropriate policies.

If Asiana hasn't (and that's yet to be established) then that's Asiana's problem, not Korea's.

ROFLMAO.

They didn't change Korean culture, they ditched it:

The last fatal accident, Korean Air Cargo Flight 8509 in December 1999 led to a review of how Korean cultural attitudes had contributed to its poor crash history. Following the review, Korean Airlines began hiring predominantly Western pilots and since that time safety has greatly improved

Re:Corporate culture beats national culture

[AdamWill]

See above discussion. That sole line was added by someone from a Japanese IP address (Japan and Korea are not on the friendliest of terms in all ways...), had no references, and was removed.

Learning to Fly in Korea

[dcw3]

Back in the late 80s, I worked in Korea, and obtained my private pilots license at the Osan air base aero club. I flew off and on for several years between '87 and 94, with an instructor who had left the club to work for KAL, and returned a year later. He raised this exact issue as one of the reasons for his departure. Respect for elders is deeply engrained in Korean cultural. So much so, that younger pilots were unwilling to point out errors to older ones. While I wish we had a bit more respect for ours in the U.S., this has no place in a cockpit.

Disclaimer: This is in no way meant as an offense to Koreans (I was married, and have a kid with one).

Re:Learning to Fly in Korea

[Anonymous Coward]

so, it's something along the lines of death or respect for elders, but not both

Except that theory probably isn't relevant

[Anonymous Coward]

The 777 trainee was the one landing the plane. Presumably, with a couple thousand fewer flight hours than the other captain, he would be younger and/or lower on the corporate totem pole. We have not been told anything to the contrary.

So if there was a problem with his approach path, it would have been on the more experienced pilot to interject, which he did but too late. According to the elder-respect theory, that pilot should have had no issues telling the junior trainee that he was off course the moment it happened.

If anything, I would find it more believable and theorize that perhaps the elder pilot was actually not paying attention at all to the landing until too late. Where the respect issue might come into play is that the trainee is not going to say as much during any investigative process, though I think in this type of situation the respect angle doesn't really play into it - regardless of culture, neither pilot wants to blame the other out of fear that the other will retaliate and then you have a situation where both pilots are basically blacklisted. So it's a good 'ol boys club where the pilots protect each others' interests and disclaim any responsibility on their parts and in doing so preserve their own employment at the expense of the truth and future passengers' safety.

Re:Except that theory probably isn't relevant

[dcw3]

The 777 trainee was the one landing the plane. Presumably, with a couple thousand fewer flight hours than the other captain, he would be younger and/or lower on the corporate totem pole. We have not been told anything to the contrary.

Not necessarily. The "trainee" had nearly 10,000 hours as a pilot, just not in 777s. For other than small planes, you get type rated (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_rating) by someone who's more experienced in that type of aircraft. That person could easily be younger than this pilot, who was simply trying to add another type of certification.

Re:Except that theory probably isn't relevant

[Anonymous Coward]

I noted that by specifying "777 trainee" instead of just "trainee". He still has, as noted in the news reports, a couple thousand fewer flight hours than the "senior" captain, ergo the presumption that the trainee is younger/lower ranking is safer than the opposite on which this theory is based.

Re:Except that theory probably isn't relevant

[ArgonautThief]

IIRC, it was the other way around. The pilot that was in control is the older of the 2 and has over 10,000 hours of flight time, just not in the 777. In the 777 he has only about 43 hours flight time "in type". The younger pilot, however, has more flight time in the 777 and was there to familiarise the older pilot with the aircraft and be present while he increased his flight time. Therefore the respect vs elder angle could definitely be valid.

Re:Except that theory probably isn't relevant

[jimicus]

For other than small planes, you get type rated (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_rating [wikipedia.org]) by someone who's more experienced in that type of aircraft.

How does that work with a new plane that nobody's type rated for yet (eg. the Airbus A380 was only relatively recently released)?

Re:Except that theory probably isn't relevant

[Anonymous Coward]

You recall incorrectly. The news articles all say the opposite. It was the less experienced pilot who was handling the plane, which would make sense since he wouldn't be getting much training done if the other guy was flying it. The pilot who was flying has both less total experience (by a few thousand hours) as well as marginal experience in the 777 (the 43 hours). The other pilot (stated to be in his 40s, though we don't know the age of the trainee) had more experience including sizable 777 flight hours. Remember one of the key facts of the story is that it was the inexperienced pilot's first time landing a 777 at SFO. This would be a non sequitur if the experienced pilot was the one landing the plane.

So no, Gladwell's theory doesn't apply until we hear information to the contrary.

Re:Except that theory probably isn't relevant

[richieb]

The manufacturer provides the training. Mostly in simulators.

I see some similarities

[Russ1642]

At all of the companies I've worked for we have keyed entry doors all over the place. However, the social norm is that you hold doors open for people thus completely breaking this form of security. There's always some email once a year that asks us not to do this but breaking social protocol simply can't be done, they need to change the security method entirely if they want it to work.

Re:I see some similarities

[Anonymous Coward]

The hospital I worked at a couple of years ago sent around the no-holding-doors policy after a spate of office thefts and so I quizzed a woman who was following me in a side door really closely, asking her to show me her badge.

She was real nice about it. Did you know women could be rabbis? I never knew that.

Had she been a doctor I bet it would not have gone so well.

Re:I see some similarities

[Anonymous Coward]

I work at a place with keyed-entry doors too. Security is taken seriously. Nobody holds doors open. (Well, sometimes they are held open when a group of people who know each other is entering together, but everyone still keys in individually while the door is being held.) Some of us actually pull doors shut behind us when someone is following closely.

Re:I see some similarities

[Russ1642]

Getting people to act like that in Canada would be near impossible without the threat of firing or worse.

Re:I see some similarities

[Belial6]

This happened to me an my wife just recently while at the hospital for my son's birth. The nursery at the hospital is only used for running tests and for infants that are in critical care. Healthy infants stay in the mothers room. The nursery has a keypad security system to prevent people from entering without authorization.

We took our son to the nursery for a standard test, and on the way out, a man tried to enter when we opened the door to leave. I had no doubt that the man was there to see his infant (who I could assume is in bad shape since it was staying in the nursery). When my wife stopped him and told him that he couldn't use her door opening to enter, that he needed to have one of the nurses open the door for him, it almost came to blows. No doubt he was under stress, but he simply did not comprehend that letting him in when we left was breaking the security designed to protect his own child.

Re:I see some similarities

[Anonymous Coward]

Threat of firing exists in places that involve security clearances ...

Re:I see some similarities

[T.E.D.]

One of my former employers (I won't say their name, but their initials are LMCO), solved this problem by using badge-operated turnstyles, like in the subways but enclosed in plexiglass so you can't jump them. An effective solution, but I lived in fear of getting stuck halfway through one in the middle of the night.

Re:I see some similarities

[r2kordmaa]

Oh yeah, break the protocol and you will be fired at

Re:I see some similarities

[Hatta]

Why don't these places ever use revolving doors?

Re:I see some similarities

[MobyDisk]

What is the purpose of a security policy if it does not have firing as the *minimum* consequence?

Re:I see some similarities

[slinches]

Why don't these places ever use revolving doors?

Hospitals? Umm ... probably because the gurneys wouldn't fit through.

Although, I think the standard entry for most secure-ish facilities is full height turnstiles activated using some sort of personal entry token.

Re:I see some similarities

[Anonymous Coward]

Cool Story Bro Time:
I was coming in after lunch and there was a guy hanging around the back entrance playing with his phone. When I opened the door and walked in, he tried to follow. I pulled the door shut behind me and locked him out. I didn't make any eye contact and just continued to the next set of doors (also requiring a badge).

Next day I get an email that I locked out our president. He was upset at first but later applauded my security sense.

Slightly off topic...

[localman57]

Going slightly off topic, but still on the topic of the crash, I'm getting sick of hearing how this was a "miracle". It cheapens the word to say so. I would say it was fortunate that it wasn't worse. The plane could have flipped over instead of spinning. The contact with the sea wall could have been worse. There are lots of things left to chance. But, overall, these kind of crashes tend to be pretty survivable these days. Calling it a "miracle" cheapens the amount of effort that goes into preparation for this sort of thing, and also tends to give you this sense that it's not your responsibility to do better.

There's a reason that people can get off the planes in 90 seconds. There's a reason that the fuel doesn't get spread all over the runway in a crash like this. There's a reason that the interior takes longer to catch fire than your sofa would under the same circumstances. It was engineered that way. The plane costs many millions of dollars more than it needs to in order to fly for just these reasons. There were fire trucks and fire fighters just sitting around getting paid doing nothing, just in case something like this happened.This was planning, and the willingness to spend large amounts of money and effort to protect human life. Plus a bit of luck. But not a miracle.

Re:Slightly off topic...

[Russ1642]

They do the same thing when a team of highly trained doctors saves someone's life. The people who use the word 'miracle' are simply ignorant.

Re:Slightly off topic...

[Anonymous Coward]

> getting paid doing nothing

You misspelled "constantly training and keeping a state of instant alertness".

Re:Slightly off topic...

[DNS-and-BIND]

The initial impact shattered the empennage aft of the rear pressure bulkhead. All modern passenger have a rear bulkhead and pressure vessel built to near the same standards. This bulkhead did fracture, but it did not shear off - while the cabin was likely breached - the bulkhead retained most of its position.

Very likely the main gear was gone and at least one engine detached before the nose gear made contact with the ground. One main gear is on the piano keys, the other has been reported in the water. With all that energy expended and weight lost and the nose gear extended - those kept the plane in a nose up position as it started to skid down the runway. Dissipating a lot of energy in aerodynamic braking by the wings.

After 1,000 or less feet, the nose gear goes off the side of the runway and digs in. The aircraft starts to pivot around. One wing tip dragging. The aircraft does a near 400 degree turn landing flat after about 270 degrees and skids to a stop. During the spin, we can see that neither wing still has an engine attached.

There was never any major force on the wings to break them away from the fuselage.

It would take only one minor change in an impact point, a wing or engine or gear digging in - and the fuselage could have gone end over end and broken into many pieces, killing hundreds of passengers.

Re:Slightly off topic...

[localman57]

That's exactly the point I'm trying to make. A miracle is something that happens against incredible odds. Something that is inexplicable. This event could have gone a variety of different likely ways, and it went in one that was pretty positive. That's good luck, not a miracle.

From Wikipedia:

A miracle is sometimes thought of as a perceptible interruption of the laws of nature.

Re:Slightly off topic...

[localman57]

Which is another way of saying "not producing anything useful, until something sufficiently unlikely that it may never happen, happens, and then producing services of immeasurable value". The point is, we're willing to pay them to do something for which there is no guaranteed return on investment. That's a good measure of how much we value life.

Re:Slightly off topic...

[Russ1642]

The vast majority of the time nobody dies and it's a normal landing. So that should be miraculous, right? Crashing isn't a miracle, it's terrible.

Re:Slightly off topic...

[sjames]

There's a reason that the interior takes longer to catch fire than your sofa would under the same circumstances.

If my living room should crash down on a runway at around 100 knots I'm fairly sure I'll be to dumbfounded to even notice if the sofa catches fire, much less how long it takes. :-)

Re:Slightly off topic...

[khchung]

This was planning, and the willingness to spend large amounts of money and effort to protect human life. Plus a bit of luck. But not a miracle.

I wish people working on software development and support in my company can understand this.

If you don't want shit to happen, planning and spending appropriately is how you prevent it happening. Not wishing for miracles, nor blaming people for shit happening.

unimaginable in the U.S.?

[Anonymous Coward]

i thought U.S. also has hierarchical culture? Upper class, middle class, lower class? respect your elders, open the door for them? give up your seat for elderly person with a cane? i call older people in the U.S. Mister or Misses. 20 year olds call me sir. parents tell their children what to do. kids follow the parent's instructions in United States of America. am i missing something?

Re:unimaginable in the U.S.?

[NatasRevol]

Lots, but I'm not going to explain it to an ignorant kid like yourself.

Re:unimaginable in the U.S.?

[treeves]

Yeah, I think you're missing the "America" part? Are you sure you live in the US?

Re:unimaginable in the U.S.?

[Anonymous Coward]

The only time class means anything is if youre upper class and speaking to someone who isnt. Otherwise, the vast majority of people dont give a shit - its not like there are low class people bowing their heads to upper class people and calling them Sir. More the opposite, thankfully.

Most people give up their seat to those who appear to need it more, whether its an old person with a cane or a young person with crutches.

If a 20 year old is calling you Sir, he is either being paid to be polite, or he can tell youre not from here so he's being polite, or he is insulting you (by insinuating youre a pompous ass who expects to be called Sir) .

Yes, parents tell their children what to do. The children ignore it. Kids follow their parents instructions about as often as they dont.

And the other guy is correct, its obvious you either dont live here or dont get out very often - not much of your understanding is accurate.

RAWilson may have said it best

[Arker]

"Communication is only possible between equals."

Story doesn't fit the facts of this crash

[thrich81]

According to the airline, a senior colleague with more experience landing 777s, including at San Francisco, sat beside him as co-pilot.
and "Ultimately, it’s the trainer pilot who is responsible for the flight,” Mr. Yoon, the Asiana president, said, referring to Lee Jeong-min, 49, the more experienced pilot who sat in the co-pilot’s seat when Lee Kang-guk was landing the plane. He had 3,220 hours of flying time with 777s.
These are from http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/09/world/asia/asiana-airlines-san-francisco-plane-crash.html?_r=0

Re:Story doesn't fit the facts of this crash

[Jawnn]

According to the airline, a senior colleague with more experience landing 777s, including at San Francisco, sat beside him as co-pilot. and "Ultimately, it’s the trainer pilot who is responsible for the flight;

Period.
While (as I have been given to understand) both pilots were rated and signed off for this aircraft, the pilot flying (PF) was being instructed by a senior instructor. It is fair to say that he (the instructor) had a responsibility to make sure that the training exercise did not compromise safety. He failed in this.
On the other hand, the PF has, at all times, the responsibility to "fly the airplane". That includes seeing to it that the AC remains above stall speed until there's a runway right underneath the wheels, and that it doesn't fly into things (other aircraft, mountains, the ground, etc.). He failed too.
Either pilot could have, and arguably should have, noticed the deviation from expected airspeed and glide slope, and then taken appropriate action. Neither did. There seems to be more than enough blame to go around.

Simple minds, simple explanations

[Anonymous Coward]

Gladwell is an idiot. He makes bogus theories that sound interesting to people that don't think too hard about them. As an added benefit, these ideas have zero proof behind them. It's like TV punditry in book form. Every time somebody uses the phrase 'tipping point' I want to puke.

Back on topic: Jumping to conclusions?

[BobRahe]

Good article here, from someone who appears to know what they are talking about: http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/transport/2013/07/asiana_airlines_crash_stop_blaming_sfo_s_runways_and_korea_s_pilots_for.2.html

Take the men in the silos out of the loop ...

[tgd]

So to speak.

Airbus's autopilots are already capable of taking off and landing autonomously. No idea of Boeings can, but I'd assume they either already can or could.

I'd personally rather see the pilots taken out of the loop. Computers can't get tired, can't get drunk.

Re:Take the men in the silos out of the loop ...

[VAXcat]

They say in the future, airliners will no longer have a pilot and a copilot. Instead, there will be just a pilot and a dog. The dog is there to bite the pilot if he tries to mess with any of the controls.

Re:Take the men in the silos out of the loop ...

[istartedi]

You're just replacing pilots with software engineers. Good job. Software engineers make many less bugs than pilots, right?

Ooopsie! I think what we may end up learning from these kinds of accidents is that there's an optimal level of automation. If fully automated landings are routine, then what kind of reaction will you get from the pilot during that 1 in a thousand landing where the autopilot is screwing up or isn't available? OTOH, if pilots land manually as standard procedure; but have an autopilot that can step in and put the hand on the wheel for them, that might really enhance safety. It that autopilot screws up, the pilot is already in an enhanced state of awareness due to flying the plane. They are much more likely to react in time. JMHO of course. Over the course of many more years, professionals should reach a consensus.

Re:Take the men in the silos out of the loop ...

[AdamWill]

"You're just replacing pilots with software engineers. Good job. Software engineers make many less bugs than pilots, right?"

Good news! With manual control of all modern airliners you have *both* a pilot *and* a software engineer in the loop, since they're all fly-by-wire now. Everyone should feel real safe.

Re:Take the men in the silos out of the loop ...

[Anonymous Coward]

There are no autopilots that can take off. But every modern airliner can auto land if the airport's systems support it.

an airline pilot also calls bullshit (via Slate)

[ChrisCampbell47]

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/transport/2013/07/asiana_airlines_crash_stop_blaming_sfo_s_runways_and_korea_s_pilots_for.html

"Lastly, we're hearing murmurs already about the fact that Asiana Airlines hails from Korea, a country with a checkered past when it comes to air safety. Let's nip this storyline in the bud. In the 1980s and 1990s, that country's largest carrier, Korean Air, suffered a spate of fatal accidents, culminating with the crash of Flight 801 in Guam in 1997. The airline was faulted for poor training standards and a rigid, authoritarian cockpit culture. The carrier was ostracized by many in the global aviation community, including its airline code-share partners. But Korean aviation is very different today, following a systemic and very expensive overhaul of the nation’s civil aviation system. A 2008 assessment by ICAO, the civil aviation branch of the United Nations, ranked Korea's aviation safety standards, including its pilot training standards, as nothing less than the highest in the world, beating out more than 100other countries. As they should be, Koreans are immensely proud of this turnaround, and Asiana Airlines, the nation's No. 2 carrier, had maintained an impeccable record of both customer satisfaction and safety."

Korean Air Lines Flight 007

[Anonymous Coward]

This flight crashed due to Soviet Russian culture issues.

In Soviet Russia, culture has issue with you!

Speaking of crashes -- EMC VSPEX advert freaks out

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know what it is with slashdot's advertisements lately, but that EMC2 ad completely freaks out Firefox and chews up the CPU on this machine, and half the time the other ads hang. And then websites wonder why people run with adblock and noscript. It's an ad, people. It's not rocket science.

Challenger Disaster comes to mind...

[Anonymous Coward]

"...deferential toward your ... superiors in a way that would be unimaginable in the U.S."

Unimaginable? I think not. At least one Thiokol engineer said "don't fly" which was definitely not deferential to his "superiors" i.e. management. IIRC he got fired even tho he was right. All the other engineers were appropriately deferential, continued to be employed, & 7 people died.

US had Same Cockpit Hierarchy Problem in 70s

[Koreantoast]

First, this isn't something that is unique to Korean or East Asian societies. Western nations, including the supposedly more egalitarian United States, had the exact same problem of cockpit hierarchy through the 1970s. Only after the crash of United Airlines Flight 173 did the West begin reorganize the way it trains its pilots, leading to the implementation of Cockpit Resource Management which retrained the way American aircrews operated.

Second, it should also be noted that Korean Air underwent similar reorganization following the 1999 Guam accident, leading to an effectively accident free record 14 years onward even with a crew of primarily Korean pilots. So you can wave all this nonsense about cultural hierarchy and whatnot, but in the end, it's more a matter of training and personnel organization.

In a broader view, this sort of hierarchical issue is less a unique problem to Korean society and more a problem of managing a chain of command. You see these sorts of problems all the time in the West: operating rooms, military units, etc. I would even argue that the real problem was that both the American pilots and Korean ones are all former Air Force pilots, used to operating in strictly hierarchical cultures where the pilot is on top of the food chain. It required CRM-type training to "deprogram" some of those authoritarian tendencies and play nicely.

Re:US had Same Cockpit Hierarchy Problem in 70s

[Billy the Mountain]

Totally agree. Paper modding you up +1 informative!

Re:US had Same Cockpit Hierarchy Problem in 70s

[Anonymous Coward]

There's a very interesting Horizon documentary from the BBC entitled "The Wrong Stuff" which is quite relevant.

(To prevent instant removal of the link, I'll leave conducting the academic research qualifying the use as educational "Fair Use" to the reader.)

Not much evidence indicating non-Korean hires

[Koreantoast]

I read the NYT article that was a "source" of that statement, but I found nothing about hiring Western pilots to break that culture. They brought in a former Western airline executive who led a rewrite of the training curriculum, but there was nothing on their about some mass influx of Western pilots. Anecdotally, I have yet to see a non-Korean pilot on a Korean Air flight. If anything, according to this article and discussion, non-Western pilots make up just 15% of their aircrews and many are used on a more temporary basis.

Re:Deference, No. Massive Drinking, Yes

[treeves]

I assume from your name that you are Japanese. Can you comment on the deference / respect for the elder in Japanese culture compared with Korea (ISTM right up there) and why we haven't heard about Japanese airline accidents resulting from the same?

This is not just an Asian thing!

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't believe people aren't being called out on this. Whats-her-name gets her career ruined over a slur uttered in the heat of the moment, and people are sliding by on this? It might be easier to apologize for these idiots if there weren't a HUGE counter-example staring them right in the face:

Tenerife

"The flight engineer's and the first officer's apparent hesitation to challenge Veldhuyzen van Zanten further. The official investigation suggested that this might have been because the captain was not only senior in rank, but also one of the most able and experienced pilots working for the airline.[36][7]"

Re:This is not just an Asian thing!

[k6mfw]

Exactly. Some years ago a PBS documentary about airplane crashes where FO (co-pilot) sensed something is out of place but too intimidated to challenge the Captain. Decades ago, CRM was very dependent on the Captain's ego. Some like to take the co-pilot under their tutelage and train them to eventually be pilot-in-command. Others said, "get out of my way, do something useful, go make some coffee." Though when we get to jets, CRM was not that extreme but it was still subtle. Couple examples was a plane that ran out of gas (I think it was early 90s) because they had an inflight emergency and captain was busy gathering info and making decisions. Co-pilot observes fuel getting lower and lower but hesitated to interrupt the captain. Pilot-In-Command should provide "opening" to accept conflicting information. Another example this documentary had was a captain saying one incident where flight plan was cruise altitude of 32K, when after takeoff and switching to Departure, Departure said to level off at 27K. However this captain had 32K (FL 320) affixed in his mind, that while rapidly climbing through 25K the FO said, "weren't we going to 27?" Captain immediately realized his error and backed off on the throttle, "OMG, I could have had a altitude bust or worse."

So nice to see Gladwell. . . .

[sgt_doom]

. . . take time off from his busy propaganda attack campaign against the Occupy movement --- what a complete a total jackhole that fraudster is!

It was a good landing...

[tompaulco]

A good landing is one that you can walk away from.

A GREAT landing is one after which you can use the plane again.

Re:It was a good landing...

[Anonymous Coward]

Two people didn't walk away.

Caveats.

[Anonymous Coward]

There's no moral argument you can make that places the life of an undeveloped fetus over the life and interests of its mother. You're likely to be objectively correct on all other points.

Re:Caveats.

[swillden]

There's no moral argument you can make that places the life of an undeveloped fetus over the life and interests of its mother.

That's the mother who chose to create the fetus, or at least made decisions she knew had a significant likelihood of creating it, right? I, personally, don't have a strong stake in this argument either way, but your statement ignores some pretty strong moral arguments that are based on responsibility. Granted there are cases where the mother is not responsible (e.g. rape), and responsibility-based arguments don't hold up there. There are also arguments based on the fact that carrying the child to term and then giving it up for adoption represents a relatively mild imposition on a healthy woman, while termination is a rather more severe imposition on the fetus.

Anyway, my point is that your statement is one-sided and debatable... which is why it is so heavily debated.

Re:Caveats.

[sveinungkv]

There's no moral argument you can make that places the life of an undeveloped fetus over the life and interests of its mother.

You make a claim about all moral arguments. The interests of the mother aren't even relevant for many moral arguments. Example: The undeveloped fetus is human. Humans were made in the image of God. It is therefore wrong to murder a human being. It is true that killing a human being can be justified under some conditions. Those conditions almost never apply to an undeveloped fetus. Killing an undeveloped fetus is therefore murder in almost all cases. It is therefore almost always wrong to kill an undeveloped fetus (no matter what the mothers interests are).

Re:Caveats.

[scot4875]

A fetus isn't a child. End of discussion.

There was no debate (churches and conservative groups basically looked at it and said, "meh, no big deal.") until the Republican party decided to play it up as a wedge issue. The whole debate is manufactured.

--Jeremy

Re:Caveats.

[Zaphod-AVA]

By tying morality to religion you lose the ability to discuss the issue rationally.

Re:Caveats.

[swillden]

A fetus isn't a child. End of discussion.

Ah, well, I'll call a press conference so you can explain that to everyone. I'm sure they'll all be enlightened, and no one will disagree.

Do they want my kids?

[T.E.D.]

If they have a big problem with copilots and navigators having too much respect for authority, I have three kids who'd be perfect for them...

African Airlines...

[Anonymous Coward]

LOL.

Do I need to say any more?

We'll never really know, will we.

[slickrockpete]

This kind of Gladwellian thought experiment is interesting and thought-provoking. Maybe some cultural proscription against questioning one's elders/superiors had at least a partial influence on how this crash played out. Maybe we can take that as a lesson about cockpit communication. Or communication in general.

The point I'd like to make is that we'll never know if that was the cause or not. It's most likely a lot more complicated than that.

Re:Deference, No. Massive Drinking, Yes

[K. S. Kyosuke]

You assume wrong. The user name is pure random gibberish. Ergo, I have no idea.

Re:Deference, No. Massive Drinking, Yes

[AdamWill]

Well, on the page someone linked earlier:

http://www.airdisaster.com/statistics/

All Nippon has the single best incident rate of any airline. So that might be why. (Certainly would tend to blow another hole in the article's theory, though.)

Re:an airline pilot also calls bullshit (via Slate

[nitehawk214]

The Slate article is apologetic bullshit. A large and modern aircraft crashed due to gross incompetence of the pilots, killing 2 people. How the hell is that not an "air disaster".

Let's nip this storyline in the bud.

Yeah, we wouldn't want a company to have bad PR, and we wouldn't want to hurt some culture's feelings. it is better to fly unsafe planes and kill passengers.

Whatever happened on final approach into SFO, I highly doubt that it was anything related to the culture of Korean air safety in 2013.

Oh, oh, "you doubt", well that certainly takes precedence over flight recorder evidence.

A more interesting question

[Anonymous Coward]

Certainly the start of this discussion quickly derailed by the usual device of redneck 'muricans unable to even see their own cultural bias, people pointing out this very thing, and then it gets pulled into the elephant vs. the donkey again. Which sort-of makes the same point again in a very american roundabout way, with complimentary airline grade whoosh and meta-whoosh. Furrfu. Anyway.

Suppose this cultural problem is indeed the case. Then we get into ethics: Is it reasonable to assume the two pilots to be equals? Among other things this shows that cultural bias has been built right into the cockpit design by culturally-insensitive engineers (chew on that, racist-callers). We basically have one extreme versus another: Equal versus hierarchical. Given that often one pilot is at least somewhat senior, because you certainly don't want two freshly graduated pilots flying an aeroplane, maybe the design ought to accommodate that.

That then brings up the question: What would a (even just somewhat) hierarchical-friendly cockpit look like? What would that mean for safety? Given the unrelenting quest for improving safety that makes up so much of the airline industry, they probably ought to investigate that. Instead of what happened: Assuming the egalitarian approach is always best, optimise for that.

Re:Deference, No. Massive Drinking, Yes

[DexterIsADog]

Oh sorry, I didn't mean to offend your impression that Americans don't generally drink to excess. And that there's a difference between working in some corporate office and flying a plane. Besides, it was an offhand response to a stupid post about excessive deference causing accidents, which cited Malcom "I am a twit" Gladwell, of all people, as a source.

This problem is all over Korea

[Anonymous Coward]

The latest news shows that the guy flying the plane was being trained. It was his first time landing that model of plane in San Fran. The guy training him was serving his first flight as a trainer. It was also their first time flying together. A lot of firsts.

If you've worked in Korea, you know how this goes. The guy in charge, no matter how experienced he is, is not that bright, and comes up with a stupid idea at the last minute, and everybody else has to scramble about picking up the pieces of that stupid idea, and nobody, NOBODY, wants to step up at any point and say "This is a bad idea." Whether the fault goes with the scheduling, or whoever trained or managed that scheduler, whatever. Initiative is frowned upon. It's led to more than a half-dozen educational reforms in the country's English curriculum in the last 20 years -- they do it poorly, they see it's done poorly, they blow it up, they start all over again, they do it poorly, etc.

I worked at an educational facility where students are put through simulated Western Environments (ie: they go to the Post Office in English, they go to the Hospital in English). My superior decided the morning before a visit that it'd be fun to have the kids go through a simulated fire, except that because we didn't have a smoke machine, they decided it'd be acceptable to burn a bunch of grass and sticks in a garbage can, bring that can inside a room and fill it up with smoke, and have the kids go inside, crawl around, and come outside. By the time I got to see what was going on, this room had no ventilation and the smoke was everywhere.

In this case, my supervisor was American. He was an IDIOT, but he was also 50, and both his supervisor and the person under him were younger Koreans, and none of them were putting a stop to it. The whole thing was going to go forward until I stepped up and said "If any kid goes into that room today, I quit my fucking job. YOU CAN'T DO THIS." Sounds like a harsh tone, but all the noises prior to that moment were people saying that this class and activity was going to happen, because this thing happened all the time back in the States. Anyhow, I was at the bottom of the totem pole, so you can guess who ended up getting in trouble for putting kids' health first.

This isn't a racist thing. There are plenty of smart Koreans here who see the bullshit for what it is. Also, like I said, the decision-maker in that last case was American. Unfortunately, they're all bound by a stupid culture that rules all people in this country, stupid and smart alike.

I believe it's true.

[potatokudo]

The idea that respect for your elders should be given priority even when doing so results in the death of hundreds of people (some of whom may actually be older Any cultural expectations which cause unnecessary death and suffering are fundamentally flawed and should be eliminated. People should be smart enough to question things, not just blindly follow what they've been taught ESPECIALLY when doing so is likely to be detrimental or cause death. I believe it's true. Glenn Doman

Re:The thing with Asians...

[Anonymous Coward]

Man, Gladwell looks and sounds like a fucking faggot, no matter how right he may be

Gladwell's comments no longer apply

[richieb]

Here is a more knowledgeable article about this crash written by an airline pilot. Korean airlines may have had some of those problems years back, but no longer.