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Comment by TallGuyShort | Hacker News Reader

Did you read this article? And if so, do you have any more well thought out arguments against that author's point? His whole point is that this type of landing is not uncommon and there is little reason at this point that it had anything to do with the pilot's experience. It's still possible, yes, but you're making statements that indicate you understand neither the article nor the comments to which your are responding. People are explaining why there is a media frenzy around the accident, not why it's okay. Trolling, at its best.

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Yes, I have read the article, and this final statement is ignorance at its best: "Whatever happened on final approach into SFO, I highly doubt that it was anything related to the culture of Korean air safety in 2013. Plane crashes are increasingly rare the world over. But they will continue to happen from time to time, and no airline or country is 100 percent immune. "

There were clear indications from the communication with the air tower that the pilots did not communicate any emergency situation until 1.5 seconds before the crash, and that the co-pilot was apparently silent in the cockpit. Check the Los Angeles times article about that. It's clearly linked to cultural aspects, all over again.

I do not make this accusation lightly - but this strikes me as a particularly racist thing to say. Your argument boils down to "because the co-pilot was silent during the crash this points to deficiencies in Korean culture".

Which is a wild leap no matter which way you cut it.

But I mean, congrats I guess. You were looking for a conclusion and unsurprisingly you found it.

Where did i imply racism? Culture has not only to do with nationality, its also part of education, training, and skills when interacting with others. This kind of accidents can happen in all cockpits where there is no open critique and communication.

That's exactly what we had in the 80s, a deficient culture in the cockpit, a bunch of hot shot pilots who 'didn't want to be told what to do' and would ignore co-pilot advice. I'm not surprised another country has these same hurdles to overcome.

But Korean Air at least, and Korean pilots have already faced that hurdle (if they aren't already the poster children for culture issues among pilots), and if it comes down to a cultural issue again I'll be more than a little surprised.

Can't find the link I originally saw that went into this in more detail, but the basic subject is covered here: http://blogs.wsj.com/middleseat/2008/12/04/malcolm-gladwell-...

More on the business side here: http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/26/business/new-standards-mea...

Prepare to be surprised:

http://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/518568-asiana-flight-cras...

That's exactly what I have been talking about and I was voted down to hell for claiming that out loud.

In my opinion, you were getting voted down to hell because you made very inflammatory remarks that had nothing to do with the parent comment. Somebody remarked on how the relative lack of airline disasters in recent history probably amplified the media frenzy this time around, and you said "So it's ok to forgive Pilots' incompetence just because statistics say it doesn't happen a lot?"

Don't play the martyr. If you had posted that link as an entirely separate comment and suggested that it was a major factor in the crash, no one would have down voted you, I'm sure. But because of that first comment that was, IMO, a huge jump in both tone and topic from its parent, people probably perceived your subsequent comments as being irrational and motivated by emotion. It was nothing to do with what you were talking about, and everything to do with how you were talking about it.

Sure, but that's not the part I had a problem with. Korean Air, after all, had an incident in the 90s where the captain overruled the strenuous objections of his copilot, resulting in a fatal crash.

The main issue I had with the post was that he's claiming this to be the case purely on the notion that the copilot did not speak during the crash. That's severely reaching, and smells a lot like fitting facts to a predetermined conclusion rather than the other way around.

Here's an extract from a pilot's post who was instructing in Korea. Don't take my word for it, take his:

"The Koreans are very very bright and smart so I was puzzled by their inability to fly an airplane well. They would show up on Day 1 of training (an hour before the scheduled briefing time, in a 3-piece suit, and shined shoes) with the entire contents of the FCOM and Flight Manual totally memorized. But, putting that information to actual use was many times impossible. Crosswind landings are also an unsolvable puzzle for most of them. I never did figure it out completely, but I think I did uncover a few clues. Here is my best guess. First off, their educational system emphasizes ROTE memorization from the first day of school as little kids. As you know, that is the lowest form of learning and they act like robots. They are also taught to NEVER challenge authority and in spite of the flight training heavily emphasizing CRM/CLR, it still exists either on the surface or very subtly. You just cant change 3000 years of culture.

The other thing that I think plays an important role is the fact that there is virtually NO civil aircraft flying in Korea. Its actually illegal to own a Cessna-152 and just go learn to fly. Ultra-lights and Powered Hang Gliders are Ok. I guess they dont trust the people to not start WW III by flying 35 miles north of Inchon into North Korea. But, they dont get the kids who grew up flying (and thinking for themselves) and hanging around airports. They do recruit some kids from college and send then to the US or Australia and get them their tickets. Generally, I had better experience with them than with the ex-Military pilots. This was a surprise to me as I spent years as a Naval Aviator flying fighters after getting my private in light airplanes. I would get experienced F-4, F-5, F-15, and F-16 pilots who were actually terrible pilots if they had to hand fly the airplane. What a shock!"

The whole post : http://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/518568-asiana-flight-cras...

People, please read the whole linked post before passing judgement. It sounds highly believable, from someone who was teaching pilots in Korea very recently (2003-2008) and makes the claims of a fantastic turnaround success story sound mostly like a very ineffective re-education campaign that has failed in the face of an entrenched educational culture.

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