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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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.

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.

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

[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: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.

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..

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.

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."