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Gladwell's Culture & Air Crashes Analysis Badly Flawed
Koreantoast writes "As a recent Slashdot article showed, interest in Malcolm Gladwell's theory on the impact of culture on airline crashes has come up again following the tragic accident of Asiana Flight 214. Yet how good was Gladwell's analysis of the Korean Air Flight 801 accident which is the basis of his theory? A recent analysis by the popular Ask a Korean! blog shows serious flaws in Gladwell's presentation: ignorance of the power dynamics amongst the flight crew, mischaracterizations of Korean Air's flight accident record (three of the seven deadly incidents characterized as 'accidents' were actually military attacks or terrorism) and manipulative omissions in the pilot transcripts to falsely portray the situation. 'Even under the most kindly light, Gladwell is guilty of reckless and gross negligence. Under a harsher light, Gladwell's work on the connection between culture and plane crashes is a shoddy fraud.' Perhaps Gladwell should have asked a Korean before writing the chapter."
Same happened after the Tenerife crash, with people characterizing one of the crashing captains as an unchallengeable authority and trying to blame the crash on that. And yeah, not true it turns out. Whoda thunk it!?
Stay on the ground if you wish to prey
Here is a comment going around from someone in the know, its even harsher than Gladwell was on Koreans.
----- hi
enjoy your flight on Asiana..
After I retired from UAL as a Standards Captain on the -400, I got a job as a simulator instructor working for Alteon (a Boeing subsidiary) at Asiana. When I first got there, I was shocked and surprised by the lack of basic piloting skills shown by most of the pilots. It is not a normal situation with normal progression from new hire, right seat, left seat taking a decade or two. One big difference is that ex-Military pilots are given super-seniority and progress to the left seat much faster. Compared to the US, they also upgrade fairly rapidly because of the phenomenal growth by all Asian air carriers. By the way, after about six months at Asiana, I was moved over to KAL and found them to be identical. The only difference was the color of the uniforms and airplanes. I worked in Korea for 5 long years and although I found most of the people to be very pleasant, it's a minefield of a work environment ... for them and for us expats.
One of the first things I learned was that the pilots kept a web-site and reported on every training session. I don't think this was officially sanctioned by the company, but after one or two simulator periods, a database was building on me (and everyone else) that told them exactly how I ran the sessions, what to expect on checks, and what to look out for. For example; I used to open an aft cargo door at 100 knots to get them to initiate an RTO and I would brief them on it during the briefing. This was on the B-737 NG and many of the captains were coming off the 777 or B744 and they were used to the Master Caution System being inhibited at 80 kts. Well, for the first few days after I started that, EVERYONE rejected the takeoff. Then, all of a sudden they all "got it" and continued the takeoff (in accordance with their manuals). The word had gotten out. I figured it was an overall PLUS for the training program.
We expat instructors were forced upon them after the amount of fatal accidents (most of the them totally avoidable) over a decade began to be noticed by the outside world. They were basically given an ultimatum by the FAA, Transport Canada, and the EU to totally rebuild and rethink their training program or face being banned from the skies all over the world. They hired Boeing and Airbus to staff the training centers. KAL has one center and Asiana has another. When I was there (2003-2008) we had about 60 expats conducting training KAL and about 40 at Asiana. Most instructors were from the USA, Canada, Australia, or New Zealand with a few stuffed in from Europe and Asia. Boeing also operated training centers in Singapore and China so they did hire some instructors from there.
This solution has only been partially successful but still faces ingrained resistance from the Koreans. I lost track of the number of highly qualified instructors I worked with who were fired because they tried to enforce "normal" standards of performance. By normal standards, I would include being able to master basic tasks like successfully shoot a visual approach with 10 kt crosswind and the weather CAVOK. I am not kidding when I tell you that requiring them to shoot a visual approach struck fear in their hearts ... with good reason. Like this Asiana crew, it didnt' compute that you needed to be a 1000' AGL at 3 miles and your sink rate should be 600-800 Ft/Min. But, after 5 years, they finally nailed me. I still had to sign my name to their training and sometimes if I just couldn't pass someone on a check, I had no choice but to fail them. I usually busted about 3-5 crews a year and the resistance against me built. I finally failed an extremely incompetent crew and it turned out he was the a high-ranking captain who was the Chief Line Check pilot on the fleet I was teaching on. I found out on my next monthly trip home that KAL was not going to renew my Visa. The crew I failed was given another check
Nevil Shute worked on the problem of making sure that aircraft were properly repaired. When the engine cowling is closed who knows if the work was done properly? His solution is a new religion of aircraft mechanics. Ordinary people pray 5 times a day, but we are special people responsible for keeping aircraft safe, we need to pray 50 times a day, each time we start a task, and each time we finish a task. The book he wrote "Round the Bend" by Nevil Shute is widely available in the bookshelves of elderly engineers. The problem is still alive and dangerous today and we approach this with code walk-throughs and such like.
the "blog's analysis" of Gladwell's book is seriously flawed.
Whether or not traits of South Korean culture caused airplane crashes in the past, the facts in Gladwell's book can't be refuted:
1) South Korean air had a much higher crash rate than other airlines worldwide;
2) They brought in a consultant to train the pilots. This consultant (a) forced them to speak English well (because air traffic controllers speak English worldwide, apparently), and (b) observed rigid command hierarchy, and broke it down so that the co-pilots didn't fear speaking up to the pilots.
3) After the consultant was brought in, South Korean air now has (had?) one of the lowest crash rates in the world.
Who knows what else went on besides bringing in the consultant to train the pilots in step 2, but there is at least a correlation there. Quite frankly I'd be more trusting that Gladwell did some research over some "blog analysis".
Korean blog denies Korean culture to blame, makes lame golf analogy when car analogy would've been superior.
I was assured on Slashdot that Gladwell was supported by evidence and logic and science, and anyone who disagrees is just being politically correct.
Gladwell is a journalist and author, not a scientist or researcher. His livelihood depends upon selling copies, so of course he will take liberties in his writing if he helps stir up a conversation and increase sales. Writers like Gladwell stand out as examples of why we should never trust a single source and look to previous works and other sources to draw upon to make your own decision.
To me it is similar to Dan Pink in that many of his ideas can be found in the works of Frederick Herzberg, Alfie Kohn, and others, but Pink puts a new spin and gloss on them.
Sorry, but its the blog author who fails the bias test:
Here, Gladwell completely neglects to mention that two of the crashes were caused by either military engagement or terrorism.
First of all he does acknowledge it was a military attack. Second it's the blog author the one who fails to acknowledge said military attacks caused by the plane wandering away from its route, which is very much pilot error.
In fact the write up in that blog is so biased and the overall tone so inflammatory that the original story should be modded -1 Flamebait.
I agree that there are flaws in Gladwell's analysis. But do you think it's possible that Koreans might feel understandably slighted by the analysis and naturally react by trying to discredit it? My suspicion is that there are elements of truth in what Gladwell writes, even if he oversimplifies and conveniently ignores things that don't support his theory.
I lived in Korea for six years and my wife is Korean, and while social hierarchy is still hugely important in their society, I cannot conceive that Korean co-pilots would choose polite deference to seniority and age over the the safety of the passengers and themselves. When the chips are down, people still speak their minds, even if deeply ingrained traditions and practices dictate they do so more indirectly.
For those who care - there has been new findings from the NTSB about the last part of the flight prior to impact.
"In an interview with Korean Authorities the pilot flying reported that a flash of light occurred at 500 feet which temporarily blinded him, the NTSB confirmed that this was mentioned in their interview as a temporary event, too."
Details: http://www.aeroinside.com/item/2761/asiana-b772-at-san-francisco-on-jul-6th-2013-touched-down-short-of-the-runway-broke-up-and-burst-into-flames
How can you culturally explain the 'Lucky it where no Korean deaths' gaffe?
The pilot was a trainee learning the capabilities and handling of the 777 and his co-pilot, the instructor was merely incompetent? I'll believe that before I believe cultural hierarchies resulted in the crash.
This incident reminded me of another aircraft mishap involving SFO, a Compressor Stall with a somewhat rusty first officer at the stick on a 747
[quote]
On June 28, 1998, a UAL 747-400 that had just taken off from San Francisco International (SFO) experienced a number-three engine compressor stall. The plane shook violently, and the crew shut down the number-three engine. Then, instead of applying rudder, the first officer, who was piloting the plane, used ailerons and spoilers, further slowing the heavily-loaded plane. The stick-shaker stall warning activated, and the F/O pushed the nose over, getting so low that the ground proximity warning activated. The 747 cleared San Bruno Mountain, which is dotted with 600-foot TV towers, by less than 100 feet. At that point, the captain took control, dumped fuel and returned to SFO. In the aftermath of the incident, it was discovered many of the airlines' F/Os were flying for years without making any real-world takeoffs and landings.
[/quote]
What also came out of that incident was the fact that the first officer was getting instructions yelled at him from others in the cockpit while a more experienced captain sat there with his hands off the controls in the left seat. Eventually the more experienced captain finally took control of the plane and landed it back at SFO. Never mind the fact that there's passengers in the back and that you nearly hit a mountain letting the first officer get some experience. It could have been a very bad catastrophe but instead it was a near miss.
The FAA after that mandated that pilots had to do more "real" takeoffs and landings instead of mostly simulator runs.
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
Mostly irrelevant, illogical, nonsense--the blog post that is.
Really. What does all this jibber jabber matter? It's not like these wrecks are happening on a weekly basis indicating some kind of systemic problem originating from a common location. Stop feeding the drama trolls. If anything, consider how lucky everyone else was on that plan. It's a uncanny there were so many survivors. Why doesn't someone blog about that. Back to work.
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I like the subtle way that all the mainstream media quickly brand him a "Leaker", "the self-described leaker". From the very outset, he was a whistle-blower bringing up illegal activity by his own government. They should be held to account for that illegal activity, not him.
Therefore your assertion does not prove the allegation of incorrect assignment of that incident to an accident as being right.
Indeed, it can be placed in the same category of wilful error that the recent "historical analysis" of how old countries are (and that the USA is therefore much older than the average) engaged in.
I fly on about 100 to 150 flights a year and I don't feel unsafe except on a couple of carriers in the US. First, anything flown by Republic which is a contract carrier for US Airways and others and secondly, Delta. Some the worst flights I've ever had have been on flights with their flight crews.
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
and with, well, according to 'merkin doctrine, every country in the world.
Walking with cameramen around your home country where the airspace is patrolled by a Merkin in an Apache? Danger, Will Robinson! DANGER!!
Flying past (not through) America from Europe to South America, DANGER! You will be hauled off, despite not being in US territory, for crimes committed abroad that are wrong in the USA.
Persistently Mexican in Southern US states? DANGER! DANGER! DANGER!!!
The Ask A Korean article says the plane in Guam "crash landed". Nope: it slammed into a hillside while on approach--big, big difference.
I didn't fully agree with Gladwell when I read that chapter (my wife is Korean). But Korean Air did have a problem big enough to cause the Korean Government to switch to Asiana at one point for official travel because of safety concerns. I think there was a CRM problem at Korean Air. I think it was fixed. I'm not convinced it was a cultural flaw, but I think culture played into it. I don't think this was a Korean problem--there are a number of crashes of non-Korean pilots that Gladwell cites that shows the same problem.
We know that CRM and sterile cockpit rules help a lot. They were a factor in the Colgan air crash and in the Lexington, KY crash before it. The reality is that these rules are broken by nearly everyone (in the pilots industry) than I'd care to imagine.
Incidentally, there's an article in the New Yorker some years ago that said CRM type training is needed for surgical teams as well.
Philip Greenspun pretty much systematically took apart the aviation section of Outliers back when it was published:
http://philip.greenspun.com/flying/foreign-airline-safety
No, let's instead trust the Ask a Korean! blog, that completely unbiased source of scientific proof and meticulous and independent analysis of the real data behind the all issue here.
I feel much better informed now. Thanks for posting this Slashdot!
I have to say, I enjoy Gladwell's books. They're interesting and thought provoking. However, I've noticed a sort of pattern. He gives lots of examples of his theories, and the examples always sound compelling, but whenever I know about the example he's using in detail, his analysis is generally wrong. They're not patently provably wrong, but just wrong enough to make me uneasy and think, "This is a really weak argument here. If I knew about his other examples in detail, would they be equally weak?"
I'm very deferential toward my boss for whom I've worked for 5 years. But if we were about to die in a plane crash I'd not lose the opportunity to tell him what an asshole he has been for the entire time.
Yeah, it wasn't the ground crew (Merkin) or the plane (Merkin designed), it was those damn chinks flying it wot done it wrong!!!
in a upon the original article. 'Nuff said.
Religous speak to God. Insane are spoken to by God. When all shut up, one can finally hear Shostakovich in peace
What injury was there?
Was the injury a foreseeable outcome of Gladwell's actions?
Does Gladwell owe a duty of care to the injured person or people?
Did Gladwell's actions cause the injury?
This is a Warhammer 40K comment waiting to happen. Blah blah appease the machine spirits blah blah.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
Funny, I just flew on a United Express flight run by Republic. It was an Embraer (a seemingly excitable regional jet) and we were trying to land at Denver International during it's usual afternoon bout with thunderstorms and tornadoes. The pilots did a really nice job of dodging everything and landing in a crosswind that was probably at the upper edge of the plane's capabilities.
I think most of the passengers were about to jump out through the windows but I thought they did a great job.
YMMV.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
One Republic flight (US Airways branded plane/flight) was out of Philadelphia a few years ago, rain and mild t-storms. There was a ground halt till the storms passed. We sat there in an Embraier 175 for 3 hours then when the weather cleared and we started to take off. We were just about to rotate when a beeping alarm sound came out from behind the cockpit door and the engines throttled down and we pulled off the runway. We sat there for another 20 minutes while the lone Flight Attendant was talking back and forth with the guys behind the door. Anyway the pilot gets on and says "well folks we didn't have something configured right so we're going to try again."
Then for the next 30 minutes the Flight Attendant sat on the phone with the guys up front flipping the coffee maker power button on and off saying "does that change anything?"
Then we go get into line for takeoff again and skippy the wonder pilot gets on the intercom and says "well folks, we'll need to go back to the gate and get more fuel." So we go back to the gate and then they cancel the flight.
Sorry, I'll never fly on a Republic flight again. I probably have more experienced underwear than than their flight crews.
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
The summary reads like the submitter is personally taking the plane crew's errors upon himself. They fucked up submitter, you didn't, until you wrote that defensive summary, anyway.
Joel Spolsky had this article on Gladwell the expresses very well what has been annoying me about Gladwell and his books.
...richie - It is a good day to code.
Or at least his theory about hierarchical cultures and airplane disasters...
I lived in Korea as an English teacher in 2001/2002 and was part of a traveling soccer club...and have traveled extensively elsewhere in Asia.
The idea that the Asia cultural notion of putting respect for a higher class could cause co-pilot's warnings to be delayed or ignored, contributing to the crash, is a sound argument.
For the reasons Gladwell outlines, it is valid. I've seen it personally in many, many everyday situations, from behavior on public transit to my bosses and co-workers at my job:
Just accept it...it's not 'racist'...and it **definitely** isn't just Korean...it goes across Asian culture (rooted in Confuscianism) and the behavior ontology can be seen in Microsoft's management (easy example) evidenced in a different context.
The article nitpicks Gladwell's example by bringing up Red Herring examples of places where Gladwell's analogies break apart. Sure, TFA makes a valid point about the ages of the co-pilots. So what. These are not counterpoints to the original notion of a culture of obedience in the face of error causing bad decisions in crisis.
Here's what TFA is missing and Gladwell didn't explain as well as he could have: Korean hierarchical culture is about who is the 'top dog'...the highest on the pecking order in that context.
It is a multifaceted, modern, complex pecking order, one that subverts and yet maintains the status quo. See, Korea and Asia aren't as hierarchical as they used to be, they have heard of punk rock and 'the 60s' and all that...their cultures digest it and adapt the ideas...Korea especially has a strong Egalitarian streak postwar...but they still have that legacy and it is still a factor, as TFA and Gladwell both agree...
Bottom line, in the cockpit, the pilot is the Big Cheese...he's the boss and reports on those below him.
At home, maybe his wife is the boss...maybe in the break room Chiang Min-Ho holds court...but in the cockpit in an emergency they defer to the pilot.
Both TFA and Gladwell choose poor language to describe a commonly understood concept and confusion ensues...
Thank you Dave Raggett
Most of the commentary on this accident is clueless. Wait for the NTSB report, and meanwhile, read NTSB reports of other crashes. Most airliner crashes have at least two causes, because the single-cause problems are known and have been fixed.
This accident is puzzling because landing too slow and too short is a classic new-pilot error. Here, both pilots had many thousands of hours, and visual conditions were near perfect. This is going to take more work to unravel.
That's OK. I've seen much the same scenario repeated on an Alaska Boeing 737. They couldn't 'get the part to fix the problem' despite the fact that you can pretty much see the Boeing Renton plant (where they build 737's) from the SEATAC terminal windows.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
It's like that with most things written by reporters - if you know enough about what they're writing, you realize that they're sort of wrong. And you start to wonder how much other stuff is wrong.
Funny you'd say you feel unsafe on Delta, when they and Southwest are by far the two safest airlines in the world.
http://web.archive.org/web/20130115111507/http://planecrashinfo.com/rates.htm
http://web.archive.org/web/20090917114421/http://www.planecrashinfo.com/rates.htm
At least since 1989, Delta has had only a single fatal crash, in over 16 million flights.
I strongly suggest you revisit whatever criteria you're using to judge these airlines, because it's pointing in the opposite direction that it should.
My rule-of-thumb advice is that the big carriers are all quite safe these days. But every small commuter airlines (no matter who's logo is painted on the fuselage) has a rather poor safety standards, and a record to match. I'd rather travel on a rusty old Greyhound bus than a commuter flights, no matter how hard the big carrier's system try to put me on one for a leg of my trip.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
And as a seasoned air traveler, you are eminently qualified to judge the "safety" of any given carrier... Right. And an airline is unsafe if you've had "bad flight" (whatever the hell that means) with them. Uh-huh. Logical fallacy, anyone?
Funny... Does Boeing have a drive-thru window?
"Yes, I'd like one 787 vertical stabilizer, well done. To go. And there's an extra C-note in it for you if you make it snappy!"
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
BLOOD for the BLOOD GOD!
When people are in Shock, they can do some interesting things. The difference at the end of the day is, "the decision I make, will it allow me to eat dinner?" In the event of a plane crash, the living will have made the best choice. And every landing you walk away from, is a good landing.
But something interesting is happening. I saw the plane bounce up about 1 wing span, and people lived? I'm use to hearing about how the bodies have to be recovered.
Who brought SWA into this? I'm not into cattle car airlines. Nope, my experience with Delta has to do with personal in-seat experience. Sorry but Delta and Republic are at the bottom of my list SWA is about 10 steps above that though, friendly flight crews but I just don't like hopping around like a rabbit in spring.
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
No how about multiple bad flights and a consistent pattern of watching inept flight crews do their jobs? Yes it's called personal choice but I don't fly with aircrews who are in my estimation, idiots. Sorry my money doesn't fly on Delta nor Republic anymore, period. I also know people who are million mile + Delta customers who won't fly with them anymore. So, go fly with whoever you want to fly with, that's your choice. I chose not to.
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
I have to admit that when I first heard about the crash, Gladwell's work came to my mind concerning Korean aviation culture. This train of thought was repeated over and over again on Twitter. This article talks about the past and present Korean aviation culture with respect to safety, and I think the writer is objective and reputable.
Twelve-and-three-quarter inches. Unyielding. This wand belonged to Bellatrix Lestrange.
and many variations thereof, have used the Korean airlines crash on their show. Their explanations were taken from investigations and reports by NTSB and its international equivalents. They say the same thing that Gladwell points out, except that Gladwell extrapolates the Korean hierarchy and culture much further into what makes something successful and failure into the realms of speculation.
But the facts (or wikipedia, if you will) remain, that if you search the Korean Air Cargo Flight 8509, the Korean hierarchy culture is very real, but haven't been an issue in flights over a decade.
Did you perform the ritual oil change exactly as prescribed by the holy manual? Ah, good. The machine god is pleased with your dedication.
http://soylentnews.org/~tibman
The incidents I read about that led to the doctrine of Crew Resource Management were from American carriers. Captains would try to do everything themselves and ignore their teammates.
We're talking about a human interaction failure mode, not some exotic Asian culture thing.
Impact of culture? More like a culture of impact.
Try the seafood platter!
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
So Alaska pilots went from attempting a takeoff with the plane misconfigured, to needing a part that they couldn't get? At what point did the mechanic come into the picture?
Also regarding Boeing, they operate very much like an outsourced JIT systems integrator. They don't make many of the parts that go on their aircraft, they don't stock many of those parts except what will be needed on the assembly line in the next few days, and if you call their AOG parts desk (aircraft on ground - their emergent need desk) don't be surprised to get a 60-180 day lead time quote, and they'll laugh at you if you suggest they rob their production parts. The best source is frequently an inter-airline loan if you don't stock the part.
Reality.
This thread is about flight safety, and you specifically said you felt "unsafe" with Delta, while the actual FACTS say you couldn't possibly me more wrong. And no, your anecdotes and general feeling aren't facts.
If you've got some other stick up your ass, fine, (why should I care?) but don't pretend that safety has a dammed thing to do with it.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
LOL, you must work for Delta then, sorry.. they suck. If you don't like it too bad. SWA's flight crews don't suck, but I don't like hopping around when I have to get across the country.
Sorry, I spend about $3 to $6K on average per month on tickets, and my money doesn't fly on Delta. I've had enough bad experiences with flying with them where I did feel very, very unsafe and trust me I complained even to the DOT after such experiences. Bad Weather scenarios, crazy ass landings.. How about tipping your wings over about 40 degrees to the left with a sudden reversal to the right less than 100 feet from the ground on final approach in zero cross wind? Sound safe to you? On that experience I had to dig the fingernails out of my arm from the woman sitting next to me. So, if you can't accept that too bad.
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
ugh...my post wasn't about whatever flight crashed in SF or any other specific flight...did you read it?
it was titled, "Defense of Gladwell"
it's a nice little post...I talk about Gladwell's book example and TFA's counterpoint to it.
you should read it...note: it does not contain any content relating to the cause of a specific flight crash ;)
Thank you Dave Raggett
I get it...yep...a race-troll.
I said specifically that the tendency wasn't race related or specific to Korean culture, or Asian culture...I said, in my GP comment, that you could see the same deference to hierarchy at **microsoft**
So your whole line of logic, everything you type after this that isn't an apology is proven wrong...
Thank you Dave Raggett
Right, I must work for Delta, and I'm just fooling everyone by keeping all their planes from crashing over the past several decades. It's a cunning plan, I don't know how you found me out.
You didn't crash, so yes, it sounds like it was, in fact, safe. I'm sure the pilot knows a wee bit more about flying jumbo jets than you do, and certainly much more about what happened in that particular situation, so I'll go with him on this one.
And it's nice how you decide to damn an entire airline as unsafe over ONE maneuver on ONE flight, by ONE pilot. Are you convinced he's going to be flying EVERY Delta flight you get on? Do you keep tabs on his career to make sure he doesn't change jobs and start flying with on of your "blessed" airlines? And that close to the ground, it sounds like the airport's fault, for having another jet or other obstruction in the way that your pilot had to dodge in a hurry... And since passengers don't have front-facing windows, you really can't have seen enough to say that wasn't the case. I guess you should never fly into that city again, either.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
There's a slight problem in TK's analysis brought up by comments section:
Hello Korean,
I'm a Korean too - I actually commissioned as an OCS (like the pilot of Korean Air 801) officer, and served as a naval officer on a ship and later as a UDT/SEAL in the Korean navy. I agree with your basic thesis that Gladwell is inexcusably sloppy and that culturalism is over-emphasized in covering the recent crash.
However, I do think that language was a contributing factor to the KA 801 crash - though such problems are not necessarily limited to Korean culture as the Challenger and Discovery tragedies, and the development of Crew Resource Management by NASA show.
First of all, I disagree with your description of the hierarchy of Korean military officers. In every day interactions, "seniority of commissioning date" is the overwhelming factor in deciding how to interact other officers, with actual age coming in as a modifying factor. Commissioning source (Academy or non-academy) heavily affects an officer's career trajectory and chances for promotion, but does not factor into the language hierarchy. Rank also does not affect the language hierarchy, which causes much cognitive dissonance and discomfort should a higher ranking junior officer work in close quarters with a lower ranking senior officer.
The senior pilot was commissioned in '75 and left the Air Force as a major in '87 while the first officer was Air Force Academy class of 26 which would mean he was commissioned in '78 and left the military as a Lt. Col. Hence, the pilot is unambiguously superior to the first officer. This is supported by the language in the transcript where the senior pilot uses the lowest form of speech () to the first officer. From my personal experience, I have never seen any junior Academy officer fail to defer to a senior (in commissioning date) OCS or ROTC officer.
Second, the flight engineer is clearly much older and senior to both the pilot and the first officer. But there is another factor in play here - engineering is a secondary rating to flying and in the Korean military at least, there is a strong sense that you don't interfere with another officer's turf. Each specialty is highly silo-ed. For example, on the first ship I was on, the Chief engineering officer (Cheng) was senior to the Executive Officer (XO). Hence, at no point did our XO fail to acknowledge the Cheng's seniority, but in return the Cheng was conscientious about not overstepping the bounds of his specialty and interfering with the management of the ship.
So there were clear linguistic barriers to open communication within the cockpit of the KA 801. The first officer was junior to the pilot, and the flight engineer was used to keeping his hands off the realm of pilots.
Second, my own experience running exercises as a SEAL has shown that conventional Korean language hinders cooperation in time sensitive situations. For Close Quarters Combat exercises, where team members must work with each other within a room to clear it of "bad guys" safely, and where the situation and command structures are fluid, my unit has mandated that everyone speaks to each other in the lowest form of speech () regardless of rank or age. Not only does this reduce the time necessary to communicate (since sentence endings are shorter), but it makes the junior members of a team much more likely to speak up when they see a corner that hasn't been "held" yet or a potentially dangerous situation.
Deference to authority is not a unique problem to Koreans (again, see NASA and Crew Resource Management), but I would argue that the Korean language structurally exacerbates the problem.
Regards,
Chris
Reply
TK's analysis seems a little premature, and off. Perhaps the people who should be talking about this are people who know what's going on.
Hello Korean,
I'm a Korean too - I actually commissioned as an OCS (like the pilot of Korean Air 801) officer, and served as a naval officer on a ship and later as a UDT/SEAL in the Korean navy. I agree with your basic thesis that Gladwell is inexcusably sloppy and that culturalism is over-emphasized in covering the recent crash.
However, I do think that language was a contributing factor to the KA 801 crash - though such problems are not necessarily limited to Korean culture as the Challenger and Discovery tragedies, and the development of Crew Resource Management by NASA show.
First of all, I disagree with your description of the hierarchy of Korean military officers. In every day interactions, "seniority of commissioning date" is the overwhelming factor in deciding how to interact other officers, with actual age coming in as a modifying factor. Commissioning source (Academy or non-academy) heavily affects an officer's career trajectory and chances for promotion, but does not factor into the language hierarchy. Rank also does not affect the language hierarchy, which causes much cognitive dissonance and discomfort should a higher ranking junior officer work in close quarters with a lower ranking senior officer.
The senior pilot was commissioned in '75 and left the Air Force as a major in '87 while the first officer was Air Force Academy class of 26 which would mean he was commissioned in '78 and left the military as a Lt. Col. Hence, the pilot is unambiguously superior to the first officer. This is supported by the language in the transcript where the senior pilot uses the lowest form of speech () to the first officer. From my personal experience, I have never seen any junior Academy officer fail to defer to a senior (in commissioning date) OCS or ROTC officer.
Second, the flight engineer is clearly much older and senior to both the pilot and the first officer. But there is another factor in play here - engineering is a secondary rating to flying and in the Korean military at least, there is a strong sense that you don't interfere with another officer's turf. Each specialty is highly silo-ed. For example, on the first ship I was on, the Chief engineering officer (Cheng) was senior to the Executive Officer (XO). Hence, at no point did our XO fail to acknowledge the Cheng's seniority, but in return the Cheng was conscientious about not overstepping the bounds of his specialty and interfering with the management of the ship.
So there were clear linguistic barriers to open communication within the cockpit of the KA 801. The first officer was junior to the pilot, and the flight engineer was used to keeping his hands off the realm of pilots.
Second, my own experience running exercises as a SEAL has shown that conventional Korean language hinders cooperation in time sensitive situations. For Close Quarters Combat exercises, where team members must work with each other within a room to clear it of "bad guys" safely, and where the situation and command structures are fluid, my unit has mandated that everyone speaks to each other in the lowest form of speech () regardless of rank or age. Not only does this reduce the time necessary to communicate (since sentence endings are shorter), but it makes the junior members of a team much more likely to speak up when they see a corner that hasn't been "held" yet or a potentially dangerous situation.
Deference to authority is not a unique problem to Koreans (again, see NASA and Crew Resource Management), but I would argue that the Korean language structurally exacerbates the problem.
Regards,
Chris
Reply
Nope, my experience with Delta has to do with personal in-seat experience.
I'm pretty sure in-seat experience is different than _SAFETY_. You said initailly:
and I don't feel unsafe except on a couple of carriers in the US. First, anything flown by Republic which is a contract carrier for US Airways and others and secondly, Delta.
Sorry your in-seat entertainment TV crashed, but that's no reason to say you feel unsafe on an airline. Seems like someone who flies "100 to 150 times a year" would know the difference.
LOL, wow, I'm not going to go into every fricken bad flight experience (exclude bitchy FAs, Bad Weather and Union issues aside) but I'm sorry you're so offended and trying to keep us safe up there. Do your arms hurt much from holding all that weight or is it the fact that your pension got wiped out during bankruptcy? And yes, I fly into that city quite a bit, albeit on another carrier now and with relatively no real complaints about it. So if you define safety as fatalities = x then yes, Delta is pretty safe. If however you take into account the view from the folks in the back while you guys are up front, nowadays doors locked sometimes that perception isn't so great. But it sounds like in your mind the pilots can do no wrong - typical top gun mentality. Why don't we ask those folks who all died on Tennerife or those folks in the bottom of the ocean from Air France? Those folks on that commuter flight in Buffalo in 2010? Wait, we can't because they're all dead and due to pilot error, which by the way is the leading cause of airline fatalities. So kudos to the industry for being much safer (fatalities x) but it still happens and when it does, as a passenger and frequent flyer, you look at it and say WTF? Maybe they should equip 777s with training wheels? Maybe if you were in the right seat you would have throttled up sooner and taken control but that didn't happen either. So in this case fatalities = 2, and maybe = 1 due do the unfortunate occurrence of a PAX getting run over by a fire truck. That's another WTF moment.
Delta still sux and so does Republic. Have a great weekend.
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
If you're riding along while your teenage son is driving and he suddenly has to swerve because he wasn't paying attention or pre-occupied with something else going on, is that operating a vehicle in a safe manner? The teenager didn't hit anything, but almost did. I guess in the Airline Pilot's view "Wow, we sure did well on that one." Bullshit, That's still a safety issue. So, please don't discount my experiences because you somehow feel that I'm being unfair to Delta and no, it has nothing to do with amenities either.
Geebus I guess I didn't realize how many Delta fanbois we had out on Slashdot... :-?
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
Yeah, I don't think you can define it any other way...
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
My first acquaintance with Malcolm Gladwell's books and writing was through Outliers which I read with an open mind, interested to hear what he had to say.
In Outliers, he ultimately makes the case that individual responsibility is essentially a myth, and thus that the social entity the only true reality. Fine, he takes a populist or culturalist stance. But what I found is that he very unscientifically cherry picks the facts to make his case. There are in history people who have made it big on individual responsibility, perhaps not Gates/Buffet/etc., but just because you can't find something in recent history doesn't mean it doesn't exist or even will be important going forward.
Sure the hockey player birthday correlation is interesting, but neither is that genuinely scientific, yet another cherry-picked case to show that it's environment, not individual skill at the core competitive youth hockey.
My point here is that it's not just Koreans who are dissatisfied with the authenticity of Gladwell's culturalist/socialist propaganda. Pragmatic Americans can see through it too.
Reading it again, it's clear to me now that I misunderstood what you meant by "personal in-seat experience."
My apologies.
mod this guy up! -Interesting how it is the social hierarchy imposed by the language itself which may have resulted in slow response or communication of the problem...
-I'm just sayin'
That's almost what is happening now. And in some ways it's a core problem. Ie, this pilot had 10,000 hours of experience (on other planes). Yet out of those number of hours, very few of them involve actually touching the controls. Auto pilot is engaged very quickly after takeoff, then 8 hours later it's turned off late in the final descent just before landing. With long distant flights this means that you rack up most of your hours doing very little.
Maybe pilot ratings should be based upon number of takeoffs and landings instead of total hours?
And if the plane had taken off, I'm sure your underwear would have logged a lot more experience.
My wife bought a VW Jetta a few years ago and it was our first car with automatic headlights. The problem with this feature of the car is that the headlights are almost always on. Clearly the car can't be faulted on safety that way, so the light controls are biased that way. So on days with bright sunlight I occasionally set the lights to automatic off but because the lights are normally set to auto, both of us forget to turn them back on. It would actually be better for safety if the lights were entirely manual and we had to think all the time about whether we needed them or not.
I think the same thing happened with the auto-throttle on this 777. The crew were so used to it just doing its job that they got out of the habit of watching the airspeed and didn't notice when the automatic controls were either disabled or faulty.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
I'm not comfortable with Gladwell, or other armchair commentators, rushing in and sharing their opinions.
The Transportation Safety Administration is investigating and, from what I know, they generally do a good job. Gladwell should have held off until the TSA has made their report. It's all well and good to have an opinion but we're a little short on facts right now.
Do otherwise and you wind up being the journalistic equivalent of an ambulance chaser. Or a know-it-all. Or worse.
Even if Gladwell is correct on the culture thing as a general matter (it does sound plausible), we have no idea if that played any role in this crash.
Your comment was most certainly 'directed' at me, even if it wasn't in direct reply to me (more on that in a minute)...
btw, you're trolling, attacking me with no foundation while ignoring my non-trollface commment
But back to being 'directed' at me...do you mean, like this---> http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3967229&cid=44263121
b/c that's you one level up basically saying the same thing...
you're trolling...the only reason I have responded is b/c I got downmodded somehow which means you've successfully confused anyone who made the mistake of reading your comments
Thank you Dave Raggett
And you seem to be trolling. My response to your comment above, particularly your passive/aggressive insinuations and trolling can be found here-----> http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3967229&cid=44266809
See you 'round the bend :D
For other readers, please refer to the GP post for discussion of Gladwell's flight crash theory and its critics.
Thank you Dave Raggett
Today I confirmed that Koreans are a bunch of overly-sensitive mother fuckers.
LOL
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"