I would like to see his response to this article by Phillip Greenspun that argues that the real reason why American airlines have a better track record than Korean ones is that American pilots have roughly 30 times more hours in the air by the time they become a pilot at a major airline: http://philip.greenspun.com/flying/foreign-airline-safety .

It sounds like Malcolm Gladwell's publisher never bothered to fact check the piece with an actual airline pilot before publishing.