Re: LA Times story on Metrolink vs BNSF incident at Rialto [link]
Author: GRRR
Date: 11-23-2008 - 17:05
Dr Zarkoff Wrote:
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>
> At this point, refer to the Tenerife disaster.
> Consensus is that the fault lay with the Lufthansa
> pilot. He was the most senior pilot in Lufthansa
> and was in a hurry to get home. As Mel Brooks said
> to Harvey Korman, "You don't correct the King", a
> comedic but true statement of the natural human
> tendency to defer to senior persons. There were
> indications that the Lufthansa co-pilot or
> navigator knew something was wrong but out of this
> innate human trait "didn't correct the King". So
> "One would think so, wouldn't one." would be more
> correct if stated "One would hope so, wouldn't
> one." because it takes a bit of training to drum
> up the courage to correct your superiors. I
> suspect the second set of eyes wasn't experienced
> enough (the warm body in a slot mentality which is
> so rife with operations these days) and couldn't
> conceive of yelling at the engineer to "STOP this
> f**king train RIGHT NOW."
Not to stray off topic or to nitpick, but the two 747's involved at Tenerife were KLM and Pan Am. An interesting sidenote of this tragedy is the Pan Am jet involved was the very first 747 delivered by Boeing to any airline.