Why Do Planes Crash?

“Planes are safer when the least experienced pilot is flying, because it means the second pilot isn’t going to be afraid to speak up.” (Gladwell 197)

This quote is from the chapter “The Ethnic Theory of Plane Crashes”, which is very much self-explanatory. I found the theory very interesting, because it was something than I had never heard about. Gladwell talks about the reasons for plane crashes; how it was mainly a combination of things, but there was one main cause. And the main cause was the second pilot being unable to speak up to the first pilot; that is, not being able to speak upright and confront them if there is an issue. Gladwell speaks of the Power-Distance Index (PDI); which is basically a culture’s treatment of authority. With a very high PDI, the co-pilot will feel very inferior compared to the pilot. The result of this would be that the co-pilot will be unable to speak up if they see a problem, or if they do, they will have mitigated speech. Mitigated speech “refers to any attempt to downplay or sugarcoat the meaning of what is being said.” (Gladwell 194). People do this everyday. It’s shocking that such a common thing could have such a drastic effect: being the ultimate cause of a plane crash.

Apparently as soon as this was found out, experts were sent to airlines from countries with high PDI to fix the problem. David Greenberg was able to go to South Korea and reform the structure of airlines enough to make them much safer. Workers are not afraid to speak up and stand their ground, and the pilot is no longer being treated like royalty. Since the importance of PDI first came out, the aviation world underwent a huge change to shrink the authoritative distance between workers on an airline in order to make flights safer: and it worked. I, for one, am very happy that it did.