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Comment by ceejayoz | Hacker News Reader

I know they train for it, but the coolheaded professionalism there is remarkable - tower, other planes, all of them.

That's why airlines like to get pilots with military experience. They are exposed to more crazy scenarios in training and work and generally keep a cool head better under stress.

Hmmm - but: military pilots are also known (especially in some cultures) for an over-strong respect for hierarchy, resulting in a willingness to go along with dangerous instructions. Also, at least some military pilots are trained to have a higher risk acceptance than civilian pilots.

Personally, I'd be very happy having an ex-military pilot flying me around; I think the pros definitely outweigh the cons. But do be aware that the cons exist.

> Hmmm - but: military pilots are also known (especially in some cultures) for an over-strong respect for hierarchy, resulting in a willingness to go along with dangerous instructions. Also, at least some military pilots are trained to have a higher risk acceptance than civilian pilots.

Can you elaborate more on what how dangerous instructions would work in a civilian scenario? Where does a hierarchy come into the picture?

Person A, in authority but missing a critical piece of information (e.g. senior pilot who mistakenly believes airspeed is high when the plane is nearly stalling) gives disastrous instruction (pull up) to person B (co-pilot) who has the crucial information, but obeys rather than contradicting A, due to hierarchy.

Actually Korean pilots (civilian) are also known to have too strong a respect for hierarchy. I remember seeing an episode of air crash investigating where that was officially reported as a factor, so it isn't even just the military where that can be a risk.

This is the most famous incident, and the one that lead to the development of Crew Resource Management, a process to make sure decisions are taken by consensus, not by deferring to authority. The crew in question, by the way, was dutch.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenerife_airport_disaster

ATC operators must be the most underrated people in our transportation system.

Underrated by who? Society? What's the most highly rated profession in transportation?

Maybe unappreciated is a better choice of words. Overrated would be taxi drivers and municipal taxi regulators.

Agreed. It was like it didn't even phase the controller. Wow.

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