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."

Comments

Comment on Korean pilots

[Anonymous Coward]

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

Re:Comment on Korean pilots

[intermodal]

I'm not sure how many others around here actually understood your post, but this basically confirms everything I was thinking as soon as I found out it was an Asiana flight. It's not a race thing, but a culture one (as evidenced by your Korean USAF pilot friend).

Korean pilots have a reputation that they aren't doing anything to counteract, and some of what I've seen causes me to share your amazement that there are not more incidents than there are.

Re:Comment on Korean pilots

[The Evil Atheist]

I can't believe how so many Slashdotters willingly up vote this unsourced anecdote.

Re:Comment on Korean pilots

[Anonymous Coward]

And I can't believe how many slashdotters are so disconnected from reality that they can't acknowledge that different cultures have inherent strengths, weaknesses, corruptions, and virtues. And this despite the constant discussion about different corporate, industrial, and philosophical cultures and these same types of inherent strengths, weaknesses, corruptions, and virtues.

Re:Comment on Korean pilots

[The Evil Atheist]

Strawman. The point is "inherent weaknesses" of a culture has NOT been proven to be a factor. There's nothing more sad than people who jump on the "I hate political correctness" bandwagon to try to gain credibility when it has nothing to do with political correctness. How about the fact that it's likely wrong? No, paint it as some white-hate thing because otherwise you have nothing but an unsourced anecdote to "back up" your ignorance. I can make up anecdotes to prove anything I believe to if I were as desperate as you.

Re:Comment on Korean pilots

[Idarubicin]

I would put a lot more faith in that post if it had been signed by a real person whose own credentials we could verify.

An Anonymous Coward reposting an anonymous blog posting doesn't - or shouldn't - be taken without a rather large grain of salt.

Re:Comment on Korean pilots

[Anonymous Coward]

There is remarkably little criticisms of the technical details in an overly technical post. This leads me to believe that the person is very knowledgeable in the field. The post is also very long and well written; a lot of effort and education went into the comment. If it is an attempt to troll, then we are staring at the Hope diamond of trolling.

Re:Comment on Korean pilots

[Anonymous Coward]

And yet in none of them have you actually argued any facts. You've simply gone "Nuh uh, you're wrong," you self-important twat.

Accurate title

[Anonymous Coward]

Korean blog denies Korean culture to blame, makes lame golf analogy when car analogy would've been superior.

Horribly biased blog

[Alomex]

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.

Re:Yeah but it makes a good story

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

Gates Foundation is a funnel for corruption, and a pocket-liner for Gates' own business interests in the guise of a bureaucracy-dodging philanthropic enterprise.

Gates is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Monsanto/Glaxo Industrial Complex, making the world safe for the IMF and its participating billionaires.

http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/living-in-dialogue/2012/07/the_gates_foundations_leverage.html

http://naturalsociety.com/bill-gates-foundation-buys-500000-shares-of-monsanto/

http://therefusers.com/refusers-newsroom/the-gates-foundation-connection-to-the-glaxo-drug-fraud-scandal-humanosphere/

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1353287/28-billion-health-fund-backed-Bill-Gates-Bono-investigation-fraud.html

http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread777028/pg0

But? If they FUND journalists and transparency foundations, then the immunize themselves from criticism by the press... It's buying coverage.

http://philanthropy.com/blogs/giveandtake/why-is-the-gates-foundation-giving-so-much-money-to-journalists/27524

http://techrights.org/2013/03/22/gates-manufacturing-a-false-image/

Re:Yeah but it makes a good story

[lgw]

That's the one that crashed because of the humans in the loop mistaking the units, right?