Delderby wrote:
Two almost new and new model planes crash just after take-off within a few months of each other? This has to be a design fault - probably electronics. All Max 8 737s must be grounded immediately.
A few years ago Malcolm Gladwell wrote a NY Times Best-Seller book called “The Outliers.” One of the studies they wrote for the book was about all the crashes that were occurring on Korean Airlines. In fact, it was so bad that the Korean government was considering shutting down the airline.
Turns out, it had nothing to do with the mechanical failures of the airplanes. It had nothing to do with the training of the pilots. The problem was ... it had to do with the “culture” of Koreans!
Their culture is one of politeness, and never questioning authority. Or if so, doing it in a very indirect and polite manner. An example they wrote about was of a crash that occurred when one of their planes ran out of fuel on an approach to JFK airport. It went down about a mile before the runway.
All the planes were in a storm circling JFK, which slowed up the landing process. The Korean airlines plane was running out of fuel, but the co-pilot was intimidated by the voice of the air traffic controller, who told him to keep circling. So ... they ran out of fuel.
All the co-pilot had to do was tell the air traffic controller that they had five minutes of fuel left, and the air traffic controller would have told them to land immediately. This was determined by listening to conversations on the black box, and then follow up conversations with Korean airline flight crews.
So, the solution to the crashes for Korean airlines had to do with the crew in the cockpit being more assertive with one another when issues were arising. Problem solved!
I’m not suggesting this is the problem with the 737 MAX crashes. But I wouldn’t be surprised if it had to do with some form of pilot error, maybe with some training needed for this new plane from Boeing that these pilots didn’t take sufficiently? The book points out that it is EXTREMELY RARE for a commercial plane to crash due to mechanical failure. Anyway, I guess we’ll find out soon.
By the way, if you haven’t read the book go get it. The studies in it are fascinating!