Outliers: the story of success by Malcolm Gladwell

Author:Malcolm Gladwell
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Psychology, Success, Successful people, Applied Psychology, General, Social Psychology, Business & Economics
ISBN: 9780316017923
Publisher: Little, Brown and Co.
Published: 2008-11-18T08:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SEVEN

The Ethnic Theory of Plane Crashes

"CAPTAIN, THE WEATHER RADAR HAS HELPED US A LOT."

1.

On the morning of August 5, 1997, the captain of Korean Air flight 801 woke at six. His family would later tell investigators that he went to the gym for an hour, then came home and studied the flight plan for that evening's journey to Guam. He napped and ate lunch. At three in the afternoon, he left for Seoul, departing early enough, his wife said, to continue his preparations at Kimpo International Airport. He had been a pilot with Korean Air for almost four years after coming over from the Korean Air Force. He had eighty-nine hundred hours of flight time, including thirty-two hundred hours of experience in jumbo jets. A few months earlier, he had been given a flight safety award by his airline for successfully handling a jumbo-jet engine failure at low altitude. He was forty-two years old and in excellent health, with the exception of a bout of bronchitis that had been diagnosed ten days before.

At seven p.m., the captain, his first officer, and the flight engineer met and collected the trip's paperwork. They would be flying a Boeing 747.the model known in the aviation world as the "classic." The aircraft was in perfect working order. It had once been the Korean presidential plane. Flight 801 departed the gate at ten-thirty in the evening and was airborne twenty minutes later. Takeoff was without incident. Just before one-thirty in the morning, the plane broke out of the clouds, and the flight crew glimpsed lights off in the distance.

"Is it Guam?" the flight engineer asked. Then, after a pause, he said, "It's Guam, Guam."

The captain chuckled. "Good!"

The first officer reported to Air Traffic Control (ATC) that the airplane was "clear of Charlie Bravo [cumulonimbus clouds]" and requested "radar vectors for runway six left."

The plane began its descent toward Guam airport. They would make a visual approach, the captain said. He had flown into Guam airport from Kimpo eight times previously, most recently a month ago, and he knew the airport and the surrounding terrain well. The landing gear went down. The flaps were extended ten degrees. At 01:41 and 48 seconds, the captain said, "Wiper on," and the flight engineer turned them on. It was raining. The first officer then said, "Not in sight?" He was looking for the runway. He couldn't see it. One second later, the Ground Proximity Warning System called out in its electronic voice: "Five hundred [feet]." The plane was five hundred feet off the ground. But how could that be if they couldn't see the runway? Two seconds passed. The flight engineer said, "Eh?" in an astonished tone of voice.

At 01:42 and 19 seconds, the first officer said, "Let's make a missed approach," meaning, Let's pull up and make a large circle and try the landing again.

One second later, the flight engineer said, "Not in sight." The first officer added, "Not in sight, missed approach." At 01:42 and 22 seconds, the flight engineer said again, "Go around.

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