News of the Asiana Airlines crash landing at San Francisco International Airport surprised me. I flew two flights on an Asiana Airlines Boeing 777 like the one that crashed, along with a 767 and various smaller Asiana aircraft.
During the flights, the professionalism of Asiana Airlines employees impressed me. Given my experience on the airlines, here are a few thoughts I had about the Asiana Airlines crash.
The Cabin Crew is a Real Story
So far, only three people have died as a result of the Asiana Airlines crash. But I haven’t seen a good luck at how the flight attendants of Flight 214 played a role. They had to manage at least three large passenger groups, all of whom spoke different first languages (Korean, Chinese and English). It seems the flight attendants dealt with this challenge with calm professionalism that likely saved lives – yet we’re not hearing about it. I’m all for figuring out what went wrong on this flight. It’s a great way to learn. But it’s also important to recognize what worked, even under the worst of circumstances. There’s something the industry can learn.
Don’t Hate on Baggage Grabbers
I’ve noticed more than a few disdainful Internet comments about the Asiana Airlines Flight 214 passengers who grabbed their luggage on the way out. Each comes down to this assumption: "I would’ve done better and followed the rules."
Maybe. Maybe not. I’m not willing to throw stones at anyone about grabbing their luggage during the evacuation. It’s a tense situation that no one ever expects – so I can see how logic failed. I can even picture myself, stretching to latch onto some sense of normality in a surreal situation, would reach for my bag as a way to restore some sense of reality. So unless you’ve been in a crash and acted like a textbook case of "what to do," reserve your judgment. And I hope you never need to find out how you’d fare.
I’d still fly Asiana Airlines Tomorrow
I’m confident in Asiana Airlines. And this crash landing makes me even more confident in the Boeing 777. The aircraft held together far better than any eyewitness expected it to. And it stayed intact and resisted burning long enough for the passengers and crew to escape. Also consider that the Boeing 777 operated for nearly 20 years without a fatality.
I hope that investigators and airlines take some of the hard-earned information from this crash -- and use it to make air travel even safer than it already is.
And sometimes, there is just a chain of errors that brings a plane down. If this were a matter of culture and training as some have suggested, crashes would be confined to certain cultures. But they’re not, and that speaks loud and clear.
