A Korean Air cargo flight takes off from a field in England, banks almost vertically, and smashes into the earth two minutes later. An investigation shows that the pilot's instruments were malfunctioning and that the first officer was too cowed to bring it up -- although he must have been certain that keeping his mouth shut was the equivalent of committing suicide.
The problem of authoritarianism in the cockpit has been explored in a book, "Outliers," by Malcolm Gladwell. I'll just quote a bit from my review of the book on Amazon.com.
"The other section I read was on the causes of airplane crashes, which the author traces to an index of what might be called "flight deck authoritarianism." You'd think that the more the relationship between the pilot and his first officer followed traditional lines, the greater the safety of the flight. But no. When the pilot is tired and needs to be warned that something is going wrong (or may go wrong), in authoritarian crews the first officer hesitates to bring up anything that sounds like a criticism of his boss. So -- "Kaboom", as Gladwell might put it." The lesson learned from several accidents on KAL was that the pilot was not a supreme commander but part of a team, primus inter pares. KAL's training program has been modified since the accidents.
The problem of authoritarianism in the cockpit has been explored in a book, "Outliers," by Malcolm Gladwell. I'll just quote a bit from my review of the book on Amazon.com.
"The other section I read was on the causes of airplane crashes, which the author traces to an index of what might be called "flight deck authoritarianism." You'd think that the more the relationship between the pilot and his first officer followed traditional lines, the greater the safety of the flight. But no. When the pilot is tired and needs to be warned that something is going wrong (or may go wrong), in authoritarian crews the first officer hesitates to bring up anything that sounds like a criticism of his boss. So -- "Kaboom", as Gladwell might put it." The lesson learned from several accidents on KAL was that the pilot was not a supreme commander but part of a team, primus inter pares. KAL's training program has been modified since the accidents.
