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."
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!?
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".
I was assured on Slashdot that Gladwell was supported by evidence and logic and science, and anyone who disagrees is just being politically correct.
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.
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"
My East Asian experience was similar. The opportunity to save face can be postponed, preferably after everyone is prevented from death.
That's just a straight up insensitive gaff which all television anchors occasionally commit and profusely apologize for.
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"
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
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?"
makes lame golf analogy when car analogy would've been superior.
Isn''t that just a culture thing?
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Because that's what pilots of large, complicated planes do. You have to do a lot of things to land a plane. Automating some helps.
It appears that the big problem is that he pilots were not sure exactly what the controls would do under the specific situation they were in.
Of course, we have to wait months before the NTSB report comes up, but it is shaping up that a big problem was an unstablized approach - basically attempting to land when a number of conditions were not appropriate for a safe landing. They had ample opportunity to fix the problem, but apparently didn't realize they had a problem (until it was way too late).
You can fly 777 in a startling number of conditions and using a variety of approaches (fully auto to fully manual). But you have to understand exactly what it is that you are doing. It looks like the pilots didn't quite understand how everything hooked together and, on top of failing to abort the landing early on they misunderstood how the plane would react in the configuration they set it to. At about 300 feet.
Oopsie.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
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
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
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."
Gladwell based his theory at least in part on Korean Air flight 805.
The NTSB recognized hierarchy as a contributing factor in the crash of that flight. However, in doing so, the NTSB cited a study of US pilots to illustrate problems with such hierarchies and how they can contribute to crashes. Hence, hierarchy problems in the cockpit do not seem limited to Asia. This is further evidenced by the fact that the KLM flight crew in the Tenerife disaster was Dutch.
I'm not sure why you're bringing Confucianism and Korean culture into it. You seem to want to make generalizations. If Gladwell had any statistical training at all, I imagine that one takeaway from his writing would be: Do not generalize from rare events.