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by m_mueller 4426 days ago
After reading the whole article I'm convinced that learning metric from primary school age up would have avoided this accident.

"In this case, the weight of a litre (known as "specific gravity") was 0.803 kg. (...) Between the ground crew and pilots, they arrived at an incorrect conversion factor of 1.77, the weight of a litre of fuel in pounds."

See, here's where metric system sanity checks become relevant, that are simply not possible with imperial because nothing is compatible with each other.

In metric, I just know, without any conversion factors to memorize, that 1kg water equals 1l at room temperature. Everyone with high school education should also know that gasoline products are lighter. Now I can do a sanity check - since the weight of one liter should be less than 1kg, there's no way 1.77 is right. If two well educated people do this math, at least one of them should see the mistake.