Gladwell does not explicitly say that American pilots are the best. However, he does use the U.S. major airline safety record as the standard (to which the cite

Gladwell does not explicitly say that American pilots are the best. However, he does use the U.S. major airline safety record as the standard (to which the cited foreign carriers fail to rise). U.S. major airlines conduct most of their operations with U.S. and Canadian pilots at U.S. and Canadian airports. The error chain leading up to an accident is an old concept. The key to preventing accidents is to break the chain, which is typically best done by a pilot who has a lot of extra situational awareness. Sadly, situational awareness mostly comes with experience, so educating a 150-hour pilot about the error chain is not going to enable him or her to deal with a challenging situation as well as a 5000-hour pilot.