A note on the last photographs of the Sea Harrier landing on the Spanish freighter; the captain, being a Greek, claimed salvage (thats why he did not give it up immediately). Eventually the British government had to shell out £570,000 for it.

I heard that in poor visibility Korean pilots would often land blind by counting the mountain ridges and then decending to an altitude below the cloud cover, which would mean disaster if you miscounted, and which was supposedly what happened on the day the Asiana plane crashed. I heard that after passing the second ridge, the pilot started descending, which caused the copilot to warn him that there was still one more ridge ahead. However, the pilot insisted that they had passed all three, which ended the debate.

Supposedly, the problem at the time was that the captains on Korean airliners were so arrogant and that they often ignored the opinions of their copilots, and I think Korean co-pilots were essentially trained not to question their superiors.

The moral of the story is that if you are going to fly blind, both the pilot and copilot should unanimously agree that there are no more mountains between you and the runway.

Here’s the account.

The Korean co-pilot was lauded in the press as a hero. Captain Barry Woods was vilified.

Once the tapes were publicized Mr. Woods was released from detention, released from service, and sent home.

Not even a thank you for saving us from ourselves.

That website, btw, has some great stuff - check it out.

I might be confusing korean air accidents (because there has been so fucking many!) but I think in the case of the canadian, he was not the pilot but the co-pilot, so technically not in charge.

And, wasn’t that the one where the flight recorder actually picked up the Canadian saying “my god, man! you’re going to kill us!”? Could be my selective memory but that’s what i remember. can anyone confirm that?

If I compare this to how Gov. Schwarzenegger and his team did when a similar thing happened in the Bay Area not too long ago, you would have thought they would have learned a thing or two. Perhaps not…

I’m sure I can be corrected here but the same principle works for vehicle accidents (which is why everyone should read Korealawblog and View from the Fence on the subject of driving in Korea) If you have an accident, you are ALWAYS partially at fault unless your vehicle is STOPPED and/or PARKED (even then you may still have some liability).

They need someone to scapegoat on this environmental disaster and you can bet if they can pin it on the other guy, that is exactly what will happen.

The funny thing is in the KAL Guam crash three years later the first officer and engineer didn’t lift a finger as the captain augured the 747 in.

(He had tried to land normally and brake, while the Korean first officer disagreed and tried to initiate a go around by pushing the throttles as the runway dwindled. Result? Barrier collision.)

I definitely do not want to hear that an aircraft crash was caused by a disagreement between two pilots in the cockpit!