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Comment by danso | Hacker News Reader

Is it OK to forgive the dozens of incompetent car drivers who kill people on a daily basis? And if not, how would you feel if each fatal accident was given such national news treatment (if there were enough bandwidth to do so, which, theoretically, there is)

My comment is not about the culpability of the pilots, but the long recognized psychological phenomenon of overestimating risk probabilities due to increased "hearing of" incidents, rare or not, the cause being irrelevant.

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Because each driver is not responsible for 300 lives in their cars. That's why there is so much attention to plane crashes. It doesn't kill one person at a time.

Besides, it's incredible such an accident happen when the weather is perfect, there is no wind, it's not at night, the plane is working just fine, and it's just a couple of pilots who don't know what they are doing because they don't know how to land a plan manually since they are used to pressing buttons the whole time and relyong on autopilot. That's what the news is about.

Just like the AF447 crash between Rio and Paris: Pilots incompetence at its best.

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.

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.

Because each driver is not responsible for 300 lives in their cars. That's why there is so much attention to plane crashes. It doesn't kill one person at a time.

Right.. and this crash only killed 2 people. Perhaps one if the reports of the girl being hit by a rescue vehicle are believed; so what's your point? The real story is just how better aircraft safety has come over the years. This same accident years ago could very well have killed everyone aboard.

Just like the AF447 crash between Rio and Paris: Pilots incompetence at its best.

...and a week after this accident everyone was blaming the weird weather that happens at the equator for the crash. The point is that everyone is speculating, even you, that this this accident is the pilot's fault, but more often than not it's found to be a combination of mechanical failure and the pilot not being able to respond to it quickly enough -- which just so happens to be the official cause of AF447 crashing in 2009.

It's obvious they have been very lucky on the landing. It could have turned out in an explosion and kill half of the passengers. It doesn't excuse anything.

It certainly doesn't excuse your profound and distressing ignorance and belligerence. The facts are that you are not a pilot, were not there, have not received an official statement from the parties involved and are merely voicing an opinion based on what little information the mainstream press has been able to glean in the time since the accident.

Air disaster investigations typically take a while. Most reach conclusions that are extremely non obvious, nor intuitive. I recommend, for the sake of my own sanity and the rest of the people you inflict your opinion on, that you read the following books:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Air-Disaster-Vol-Macarthur-Job/dp/18...

http://www.amazon.co.uk/books/dp/1875671196

There is a third volume available as well if you can stick it out, but perhaps you may gain some much needed perspective.

Doctors make mistakes. Programemrs make mistakes. Pilots make mistakes.

In fact, if you can actually get an airline pilot in a relaxed situation where he's certain you won't rat him out, you'll hear lots of stories about stupid mistakes. The fact that this inevitable human error almost never results in fatalities is a testament to the level of redundancy in air traffic procedures.

As a case in point, I talked to a pilot in one of Europe's major low-price carriers. They had an incident where both pilots literally fell asleep in the cockpit and were intercepted by German jets. Apart from the jet fighter escorts, the passengers never knew anything was off.

"plane is working just fine"

This you know how?

See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6013520 It certainly does not look like plane failure.

Pilots suggest plane slowed despite presence of auto-throttle: http://www.cnn.com/2013/07/10/us/asiana-airlines-crash/

My point is, it is premature to rule out aircraft problems.

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