[tim333]

There's an interesting discussion by Malcolm Gladwell in Outliers of how Korean culture of this type may have caused the crash of Korean Air Flight 801.

>Korean Air had more plane crashes than almost any other airline in the world for a period at the end of the 1990s. When we think of airline crashes, we think, Oh, they must have had old planes. They must have had badly trained pilots. No. What they were struggling with was a cultural legacy, that Korean culture is hierarchical. You are obliged to be deferential toward your elders and superiors in a way that would be unimaginable in the U.S.

>But Boeing and Airbus design modern, complex airplanes to be flown by two equals. That works beautifully in low-power-distance cultures [like the U.S., where hierarchies aren't as relevant]. But in cultures that have high power distance, it's very difficult.

https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/07/malcolm...

[Sharlin]

The Western aviation culture also had to learn the lesson the hard way. The lessening of (perceived or actual) power differentials and the ability to raise concerns at any time are a part of the new communication paradigm developed in the 70s and 80s after a few disastrous accidents, now commonly known as Crew resource management [1]. Captain Haynes had the following to say after the United Airlines Flight 232 accident: [2]

...the preparation that paid off for the crew was something ... called Cockpit Resource Management.... Up until 1980, we kind of worked on the concept that the captain was THE authority on the aircraft. What he said, goes. And we lost a few airplanes because of that. Sometimes the captain isn't as smart as we thought he was. And we would listen to him, and do what he said, and we wouldn't know what he's talking about.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crew_resource_management

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Airlines_Flight_232

[EliRivers]

As an aside, I find that while many (all, I'd hope!) professional pilots recognise their own limits and the necessity of modern CRM, many non-pilots still like to hold on to a romantic notion that on a flight, the captain is as god, even ascribing the captain powers well beyond the job.

[rurounijones]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_Air_Flight_801

The flight in question. Captain was a retired and highly respected airforce pilot. It was determined that the first officer knew that things were going wrong but didn't say anything.