3 ms·

And this post demolishes Gladwell's theory rather thoroughly. http://askakorean.blogspot.com.au/2013/07/culturalism-gladwell-and-airplane.html http://askakorea

And this post demolishes Gladwell's theory rather thoroughly. http://askakorean.blogspot.com.au/2013/07/culturalism-gladwell-and-airplane.html http://askakorean.blogspot.com.au/2013/07/culturalism-gladwe...

lisper 13y ago
So what? Just because some author advanced a flawed argument does not change the fact that Koreans account for a greater share of aircraft accidents caused by pilot error than could be reasonably accounted for by random chance. Just because an argument is flawed doesn't mean the conclusion is false.
- jpatokal 13y ago
  The link I posted notes that 3 of the 7 crashes where Gladwell blames "pilot error" were actually caused by being shot down by the Soviets (x2) and being bombed by the North Koreans (x1). Which pretty much removes the statistical anomaly of Korean airlines having more accidents.
  - lisper 13y ago
    Look, we all agree that Malcolm Gladwell is an idiot, so the fact that he cites bogus data contributes nothing to the discussion. Happily, we don't need to rely on Gladwell's data. Korean air lines have had so many incidents and accidents that there's a whole wikipedia page about them: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_Air_incidents_and_accidents http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_Air_incidents_and_accide... "Korean Air had many fatal accidents between 1970 and 1999, during which time it wrote off 16 aircraft in serious incidents and accidents with the loss of 700 lives. The last fatal accident, Korean Air Cargo Flight 8509 in December 1999 led to a review of how Korean cultural attitudes had contributed to its poor crash history." So for 30 years, KAL was crashing planes at the rate of about one every other year. The situation did improve after the review, but there was still an unintended off-runway landing in 2007, and of course the SFO crash (which is not mentioned in the article at all -- someone needs to go update it).
notastartup 13y ago
That blog writer is a Korean American lawyer and easily hated for his inaccurate and biased reporting of Korean topic. He arrogantly claims to represent his erroneous views as what majority of Koreans think. Who do I trust more, some biased Korean American lawyer who hates his job and rants online, or an officer who trained Korean pilots, witnessed that the Korean culture produces incompetent pilots?

lisper 13y ago

So what? Just because some author advanced a flawed argument does not change the fact that Koreans account for a greater share of aircraft accidents caused by pilot error than could be reasonably accounted for by random chance. Just because an argument is flawed doesn't mean the conclusion is false.

jpatokal 13y ago
The link I posted notes that 3 of the 7 crashes where Gladwell blames "pilot error" were actually caused by being shot down by the Soviets (x2) and being bombed by the North Koreans (x1). Which pretty much removes the statistical anomaly of Korean airlines having more accidents.
- lisper 13y ago
  Look, we all agree that Malcolm Gladwell is an idiot, so the fact that he cites bogus data contributes nothing to the discussion. Happily, we don't need to rely on Gladwell's data. Korean air lines have had so many incidents and accidents that there's a whole wikipedia page about them: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_Air_incidents_and_accidents http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_Air_incidents_and_accide... "Korean Air had many fatal accidents between 1970 and 1999, during which time it wrote off 16 aircraft in serious incidents and accidents with the loss of 700 lives. The last fatal accident, Korean Air Cargo Flight 8509 in December 1999 led to a review of how Korean cultural attitudes had contributed to its poor crash history." So for 30 years, KAL was crashing planes at the rate of about one every other year. The situation did improve after the review, but there was still an unintended off-runway landing in 2007, and of course the SFO crash (which is not mentioned in the article at all -- someone needs to go update it).

notastartup 13y ago

That blog writer is a Korean American lawyer and easily hated for his inaccurate and biased reporting of Korean topic. He arrogantly claims to represent his erroneous views as what majority of Koreans think. Who do I trust more, some biased Korean American lawyer who hates his job and rants online, or an officer who trained Korean pilots, witnessed that the Korean culture produces incompetent pilots?