Captain Bligh

Since you broached the topic I feel somewhat insulated from the inevitable attacks I'll likely suffer for crossing this particular line of political correctness.

The news networks CNN, FOX etc.. are either ignorant or tap dancing all around this subject, so let's have the discussion here. For the younger entrants into our profession, maybe some history needs to be told. Feel free to let me know if you think that the industry's past (and perhaps my mention of it) was rooted in racism or reality...

There was a point in my career where every third captain I flew with was tempted to being lured to an Asian contract job for huge sums of money, offshore income, completion bonuses etc... Why? Because industry officials, manufacturers, and most importantly insurance underwriters full well knew that certain unique Asian cultural niceties, did NOT translate well to saftey. Especially "FACE" or the loss of it.

Much of that history of bringing in talent has changed, especially as foreign operators succumb to pressure internally (from first officers) and from politicians, to install home country nationals into those high paying jobs. You know the story, developing the local economy, keeping the income closer to home.

It's my opinion that several of the big asian companies enjoy admirable cultures of saftey. JAL serves as an example; a company that has used a very large percentage of contract pilots, but has developed it's own in house pipeline to the left seat. Albeit their annal adherence to procedure would drive most of us a little crazy, saftey culture seems to work better there than it once did.

Other airlines have not done this as well. The political pressures to install nationals, eventually breaks down some of those saftey barriers the airline paid so dearly for. First officers that sat under the tutelage of hired captains may be perfectly able to check out and fly safely, but far less sensitive to the cultural problem that is such a stumbling block to Cockpit Resource Management as they themselves mentor the next generation of nationals. Can the Asiana accident be blamed on culture?

I think we're going to have to wait until NTSB is completely done, but my first guess is leaning in that direction.

Most of my retired buddies have all done some contract flying and the stories are very entertaining and some almost unbelievable.

ForeverFO

The cultural disconnect is huge.

At least ONE of those pilots had to have been thinking "We are about to die, or kill somebody, or bend metal in a BIG way", yet so far as we know, what was said was too little, too late.

Apparently, death, or prison, or grounding for life, is less important than face, and cultural tradition.

We in the "West" had some of that for a while, whereby the CA was a demigod. But even then, not many FO's are going to allow Cappy to kill everyone when they recognize immediate danger.

rickair7777

I don't understand why the check airman didn't intervene...HE was the PIC.

fatsopilot

I agree, this has already been documented in Korea:

Malcolm Gladwell on Culture, Cockpit Communication and Plane Crashes - The Middle Seat Terminal - WSJ

Their whole culture is setup in a hierarchal fashion, so much so that the language they speak is part of the problem. In the book he explained how the company forced the pilots to speak English in order to counter the problem inherent in the Korean language. There is only one chapter in the book about aviation but the whole book is an interesting read.

xjtguy

Good point. But IIRC, the FedEx MD10 in MEM had a similar situation. Checkairman in the cockpit.

YEAH, I KNOW, those circumstances were different than the Asiana. But the FACT is, there was an LCA/checkairman in the cockpit, and things STILL went horribly wrong.

Dougdrvr

Don't you lose "Face" when you smack the earth? (in any culture)

Captain Bligh

...and here in lies our first example of how westerners just don't get it.

You could sit in my cockpit and correct me 1000 times. I'd still get together with you for dinner on the layover. You might keep me from turning on to the wrong taxiway, you might keep me from shooting the wrong approach, violating an altitude, on and on it goes... I make a lot of mistakes some days. Then again I might have corrected most of my own errors without your input. In an extreme case I might even tell you to, "GMAFB I'm not going to forget to hold short of the runway.", but you're still going to give me your input in saftey situations, because my cockpit briefings insure to convey that your input is needed. Beyond my briefing however you aren't as likely to hang up with the concept of causing me to lose face.

I believe not so in most of the Asian culture. The gut wrenching feeling that one has when unnecessarily "correcting" his senior, is so to be avoided, that the inevitable accident, is the proverbial forest that can't be seen through the trees.

thump

I dunno if it's been mentioned here, but the Turkish 737 crash at Schiphol also had a LCA in the cockpit.

rickair7777

Things happen fast in the flare, and even the best captain/check airman might not be able to save the day, even though they are always held accountable. At SFO they didn't get low and slow in a split second, somebody should have seen that coming.

MikeF16

Good post, but this sentence summarizes nicely. This could just as easily have been Emirates or Etihad.