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Tenerife - 27 Mar 1977

Hammer10k

Well-Known Member
pilot
Crazy stuff. Saw this for the first time in CRM recently.

A good supplement is Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell. He covers the Korean Air crashes in the 90's and how the company saved themselves from ruin. In short, the Korean culture is big on deference to authority. Korean First Officers weren't challenging Captains when they felt like the plane was in danger. The airline had a culture revamp and required English to be spoken in the cockpit, among other changes, which allowed the crew to speak up without the culture barriers.
 

HAL Pilot

Well-Known Member
None
Contributor
I would never fly on KAL or any other Korean airline. I know a couple of retired airline pilots taeching for them. They still have FO afraid to speak, Captains that think they are Gods and can't fly worth a shit without an autopilot/automation or when something outside the norm happens.

They haven't learned that much since the 90s according to these guys. They non-rev back to the U.S. forr their time off on us and other U.S. Air carriers instead of in the first class seats they would get on KAL because as one said "I try to train them, I know how bad they fly. I don't have a death wish." Good enough for me to not fly on them.
 

Fallonflyr

Well-Known Member
pilot
I would never fly on KAL or any other Korean airline. I know a couple of retired airline pilots taeching for them. They still have FO afraid to speak, Captains that think they are Gods and can't fly worth a shit without an autopilot/automation or when something outside the norm happens.

They haven't learned that much since the 90s according to these guys. They non-rev back to the U.S. forr their time off on us and other U.S. Air carriers instead of in the first class seats they would get on KAL because as one said "I try to train them, I know how bad they fly. I don't have a death wish." Good enough for me to not fly on them.
Most likely going to get worse now that all the furloughed guys are back or coming back.
 

nittany03

Recovering NFO. Herder of Programmers.
pilot
None
Super Moderator
Contributor
Crazy stuff. Saw this for the first time in CRM recently.

A good supplement is Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell. He covers the Korean Air crashes in the 90's and how the company saved themselves from ruin. In short, the Korean culture is big on deference to authority. Korean First Officers weren't challenging Captains when they felt like the plane was in danger. The airline had a culture revamp and required English to be spoken in the cockpit, among other changes, which allowed the crew to speak up without the culture barriers.
Read a interesting article on CRM somewhere; I'll have to see if I can find it. Bottom line is that it apparently was a very hard sell, not just in Korea, but in other cultures which are similar. Turns out some of the cultures that are the way you describe are also very collectivist, not individualist like Americans. Apparently, to get people to buy into the same behaviors, the key was to de-emphasize the "don't defer to authority" bit and emphasize the "this will make you work as a better team, and the boss will save face" bit.
 

exNavyOffRec

Well-Known Member

Jim123

DD-214 in hand and I'm gonna party like it's 1998
pilot
I find it interesting that that right after the accident that KLM was blaming PAN AM but it looks like the report shows errors mainly on the KLM jet, unless I misread the report.
The KLM captain was their poster child (literally- he was in all kinds of their ads) of a wise, experienced, captain- the sorts of traits the traveling public would desire in someone in charge of their voyage.

When it comes to the cockpit dynamic, there are a few versions of this story about the captain's personality and how maybe the outcome could have been different... or maybe not... You have to consider politics, company pride, national pride in that aspect and some of the other aspects of it too.

I think you read the report right. There was blame to go around, but being cleared for takeoff by a control tower is supposed to be an unambiguous thing. It's like entering an intersection without a green light- there are times when it is OK but you'd better be absolutely sure.
 

GroundPounder

Well-Known Member
The KLM captain was their poster child (literally- he was in all kinds of their ads) of a wise, experienced, captain- the sorts of traits the traveling public would desire in someone in charge of their voyage.

When it comes to the cockpit dynamic, there are a few versions of this story about the captain's personality and how maybe the outcome could have been different... or maybe not... You have to consider politics, company pride, national pride in that aspect and some of the other aspects of it too.

I think you read the report right. There was blame to go around, but being cleared for takeoff by a control tower is supposed to be an unambiguous thing. It's like entering an intersection without a green light- there are times when it is OK but you'd better be absolutely sure.

In one of the documentaries about this incident, they mention that when KLM corporate was notified that the first person they wanted to respond was the KLM captain involved in the accident.
 

Uncle Fester

Robot Pimp
None
Super Moderator
Contributor
The KLM captain was their poster child (literally- he was in all kinds of their ads) of a wise, experienced, captain- the sorts of traits the traveling public would desire in someone in charge of their voyage...You have to consider politics, company pride, national pride in that aspect and some of the other aspects of it too.

In one of the documentaries about this incident, they mention that when KLM corporate was notified that the first person they wanted to respond was the KLM captain involved in the accident.

I was reading a book recently about aircraft mishap investigations, and one of the points it raised is the difficulty - conflict of interest, essentially - when a national aviation authority is involved in investigating a national-flag carrier. Among the examples were Malaysia 370 and the '79 Air New Zealand crash into Mt Erebus (where the NZ aviation authority was caught destroying evidence in order to blame the crew).
 

Flash

SEVAL/ECMO
None
Super Moderator
Contributor
I find it interesting that that right after the accident that KLM was blaming PAN AM but it looks like the report shows errors mainly on the KLM jet, unless I misread the report.

I was reading a book recently about aircraft mishap investigations, and one of the points it raised is the difficulty - conflict of interest, essentially - when a national aviation authority is involved in investigating a national-flag carrier. Among the examples were Malaysia 370 and the '79 Air New Zealand crash into Mt Erebus (where the NZ aviation authority was caught destroying evidence in order to blame the crew).

Aircraft mishaps are investigated by the country in which they occur so Spain had official responsibility but they were assisted by investigators from the US and the Netherlands, a standard practice that still often happens. In the final report the Spanish, backed by US investigators, placed most of the blame on the KLM Captain but Dutch investigators published a response mitigating his responsibility citing other factors. It changed nothing officially but muddled things a bit. As Fester points out, things can get messy when multiple countries are involved and national pride is on the line.
 

Uncle Fester

Robot Pimp
None
Super Moderator
Contributor
Aircraft mishaps are investigated by the country in which they occur so Spain had official responsibility but they were assisted by investigators from the US and the Netherlands, a standard practice that still often happens. In the final report the Spanish, backed by US investigators, placed most of the blame on the KLM Captain but Dutch investigators published a response mitigating his responsibility citing other factors. It changed nothing officially but muddled things a bit. As Fester points out, things can get messy when multiple countries are involved and national pride is on the line.

True; though the two cases I cited (int'l waters and Antarctica), there was no local aviation authority, so the carriers' national authority was the investigator. There have also been several cases where the local authority deferred to the flagged authority, for whatever reason, especially when the local authority is very small, underfunded, understaffed, and/or inexperienced, and the flagged authority is the US, UK, France, etc.
 

Flash

SEVAL/ECMO
None
Super Moderator
Contributor
True; though the two cases I cited (int'l waters and Antarctica), there was no local aviation authority, so the carriers' national authority was the investigator. There have also been several cases where the local authority deferred to the flagged authority, for whatever reason, especially when the local authority is very small, underfunded, understaffed, and/or inexperienced, and the flagged authority is the US, UK, France, etc.

I was going to mention that but I thought it was a little redundant, alas....:D

I am pretty sure if in international airspace/waters/Antarctica it is technically the country of the mishap plane's registry that has responsibility for the accident investigation, if it involves two planes from different countries in international waters/airspace I honestly don't know how that one would play out.
 
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BACONATOR

Well-Known Member
pilot
Contributor
A case study paper in my masters class. Definitely a classic case I think we can all relate to (on SOME level). I think every one of us has either said, or heard "It'll be OK" in our careers. Definitely took me down a step or two when it came to safety and flying.
 
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