Slashdot Mirror
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."
Malcolm Gladwell. Can you really take seriously, the man who claims that Steve Jobs will be forgotten by history, while Bill Gates will be revered like Pasteur and Oskar Schindler ?
Gladwell's been savaged enough for his whole "Tipping Point" pseudo-mathematical twaddle. As a columnist for the NYT, he's a perfect Tweedle-Dum to Thomas Friedman's Tweedle-Dumber.
What's less apparent to people is that Gladwell is a stooge, and lickspittle lackey to big industry.
Dissident Voice has a great article on how he's used his podium to Astroturf for denial of benefits to the insured.
"Gladwell has yet to disclose a list of his corporate clients and how much they pay him. Here is a partial list compiled from various publicly available sources:"
Look into Project S.H.A.M.E., to fully expose the depth of this fraudulent, pseudo-intellect.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
At civil airports, English is mandatory. It's an ICAO requirement, actually, that all communications take place in English using standard phraseology.
In fact, the requirement has gone up to require ALL pilots and controllers be tested for English proficiency - even if you're in an English-speaking country and speak it natively. Yes, you have to submit to a (relatively simple) English proficiency test as part of your license.
Apparently, native speakers who score the max (Expert) are exempt from future tests - those who score one below (Operational) must re-take the test yearly. Operational is the minimum required to pass.
Note this only applies to civil aviation. Military airports and airfields are completely different beasts.
And in Canada, Quebec likes to be different so all their controllers tend to greet initially in French and grudgingly speak English to Canadian aircraft. (International aircraft they'll happily speak English to).
An example set of questions and responses:
http://www.tc.gc.ca/eng/civilaviation/standards/general-personnel-test_taker_guide-2296.htm
The original post is from pprune.org, dipshit. You know, the professional pilots forum. If you knew as much as you think you do, you would have known that.