Plane crash after plane crash after plane crash: the 1980s and 1990s were disastrous years for airlines around the world: in particular, Korean Air and Avianca. The worst part was that no one could figure out why. For a plane crash to occur, there are many errors that must accumulate atop each other—in addition to some contextual aspects such as unfortunate weather conditions or running late on schedule.
With everyone baffled and the reputation of airlines depreciating at an alarming rate, black box recordings of conversations between the pilot and the co-pilot in the cockpit were analyzed. Then, those who listened discovered, something didn’t make sense. If a plane is going down, shouldn’t there be chaos in the cockpit? Screaming to the Air Traffic Control (ATC) that they are in an emergency, frantically trying to save the situation by madly working the landing gear, or fighting with each other—anything that signifies the terror of a pilot in a plane that cannot land safely?
Instead, what they heard from the black box were quiet, casual conversations, punctuated by 30-minute silences. The remarks made, furthermore, are just about as ambiguous and indirect as you could expect from someone in a cockpit of a malfunctioning plane.
Malcolm Gladwell explains this bewildering phenomenon, then goes on to explain why the reason behind these plane crashes is connected to his central argument about successful people. There are deep roots spread underneath outliers, whether we’re talking about Steve Jobs or a Boeing 707 crash. These roots reach back into history, culture, legacy, or a miraculous coming together of stars for some extraordinary happenstance. When we think we have the full story, more often than not, we don’t.
The mystery of these unbelievably relaxed cockpit conversations was solved when a team of linguists (yes, linguists) studied the recordings. What they discovered was that the co-pilot was using a technique called “mitigation.” An example of mitigation is saying, “If you could take a look at it, that would be wonderful,” rather than “I’ll need it edited by Monday.” While frequently used in society, within a cockpit, it is both inappropriate and dangerous. However, the linguists noticed many instances of intense mitigation in the recordings. That brings us to the key reason behind the plane crashes in Korea and Colombia, another missing piece of the story: culture.
Outliers explains—and as a Korean, I can confirm—that in certain cultures such as the Korean one, social hierarchy matters. In other words, although the co-pilot is technically obligated to direct the pilot or even take over if they feel that something is awry and the pilot is not taking necessary action, it is socially unacceptable to do so. You might be thinking, “There’s no way that manners carry over into a life-and-death situation!” But they do. The black box recordings prove it. In the recording from the Avianca 052 crash, we can hear Caviedes (the captain) say, “Tell them we are in an emergency!” And then Klotz (the co-pilot) says to the ATC:
“That’s right to one-eight-zero on the heading and, ah, we’ll try once again. We’re running out of fuel.”
The first sentence doesn’t even acknowledge their emergency. It’s a “routine acknowledgment” of the instructions that the ATC gave them. It’s only at the second part of his remark that Klotz even mentions that they’re having some trouble. And the way he says it—well, “running out of fuel” is just about as meaningless as a call for help can get; as the plane approaches the destination, of course it’s running out of fuel. Furthermore, the air traffic controller who was speaking to Klotz later testified that Klotz’s tone of voice was “nonchalant” and there was “no urgency in his voice.”
Below are a few more remarks from other plane crashes that co-pilots actually made to the captain in the cockpit:
“Look how the ice is just hanging on his, ah, back, back there, see that?”
Later: “See all those icicles on the back there and everything?”
Later, trying again: “Boy, this is a, this is a losing battle here on trying to de-ice those things, it [gives] you a false feeling of security, that’s all that does.”
And going back to the Avianca crash, the following is Klotz’s last remark in the recording. The ATC gives him some instructions and then says, “Is that okay with you and your fuel?” Klotz responds:
“I guess so. Thank you very much.”
Can you believe it? “Thank you very much.” as they’re about to crash. Suren Ratwatte, a veteran pilot heavily involved in this study, said of this recording: “No American pilot would put up with that. That’s the thing. They would say, ‘Listen, buddy. I have to land.’” And sure enough, that was the key behind the crashes. Klotz was Colombian. Where does Colombia rank at the Power Distance scale (a spectrum where countries are ranked according to how much power those of high status hold over those of a lower status)? The absolute high end where the captain of the plane is not your equal and you tell him that you’re in trouble by using mitigation and defer to him no matter what.
This was fundamentally what had been happening in South Korea, a country with a sky-high Power-Distance Index along with Columbia. Once a cultural outsider—an American named David Greenberg—stepped in to objectively analyze the situation and train the pilots, this problem was solved, and Korean Air is now safe as any airline in the world, with a spotless safety record since 1999 and multiple prestigious awards in recognition of its astonishing transformation. The problem was in culture—a part of the story of the outliers that no one had previously thought to look for.
Greenberg says of his work with Korean Air, “We retrained them and put them with the Western crew. They’ve been a great success. We took them out of their culture and re-normed them.” An aspect of the Korean culture that was fatal in a cockpit had been discovered and altered, freeing Korean Air of its history of disasters. When we understand the context surrounding an outlier, Gladwell concludes, we don’t have to despair. We don’t have to give up the idea of us ever being as successful as the brilliant people we see, or abandon the idea of using a crash-littered airline ever again. All we have to do is acknowledge the strengths and predispositions that a culture ingrains its people with, how there are correlations and patterns that we sometimes miss.
While this won’t make geniuses spring from the earth or solve every mystifying disaster humanity has encountered, it will mark a significant step forward. Again and again through Outliers, you will be shocked at just how much humans have missed—or maybe ignored—throughout history. Access to once-in-a-lifetime opportunities birthed the most successful people. Release from a restraining aspect of its cultural legacy allowed a dying airline to redeem itself. Outliers aren’t outliers from the beginning: they have roots, a context, and a story that made them that way. With this understanding and willingness to find out more components to a story, think about all the lost chances and lost potential we can recover in the future.
