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Situational Awareness
Dec. 11th, 2009 09:17 amWay back in October, I blogged about the airliner that flew past its destination. In my blog, I talked about "situational awareness" and suggested that the pilots fell asleep.
Well, Patrick Smith, the aviation blogger for Salon.com, has a more nuanced report. Reconstructing the flight based on blogs and other sources, he comes up with a series of 12 factors that led to the "mishap." It's a litany of simple things - changing to the wrong radio frequency, getting distracted by the "security rigmarole required when opening and closing the flight deck door," and other factors. It's worth a full read.
In my original post, I mentioned that I'd lost situational awareness once or twice in my Navy days. Although no two situations are the same, some of the same factors apply. It is, in short, not just one screw-up but a combination thereof. This multiple screw-up phenomenon is unfortunately a factor in modern life. We live much more complicated lives than our ancestors did.
This greater complexity is frustrating to many people, and the search for simple answers fuel many a conspiracy theory or witch hunt. But the genie is out of the bottle.
Well, Patrick Smith, the aviation blogger for Salon.com, has a more nuanced report. Reconstructing the flight based on blogs and other sources, he comes up with a series of 12 factors that led to the "mishap." It's a litany of simple things - changing to the wrong radio frequency, getting distracted by the "security rigmarole required when opening and closing the flight deck door," and other factors. It's worth a full read.
In my original post, I mentioned that I'd lost situational awareness once or twice in my Navy days. Although no two situations are the same, some of the same factors apply. It is, in short, not just one screw-up but a combination thereof. This multiple screw-up phenomenon is unfortunately a factor in modern life. We live much more complicated lives than our ancestors did.
This greater complexity is frustrating to many people, and the search for simple answers fuel many a conspiracy theory or witch hunt. But the genie is out of the bottle.
