Here’s a story on a Boeing 737 crash: “NTSB: Southwest Airlines captain in 2013 accident should have done ‘go-around’ rather than attempt LaGuardia landing” (NTSB release). As this was a major U.S. airline both pilots had to be very experienced (see “Foreign Airline Safety” for the career path). The full narrative shows that the captain had 8,000 hours of 737 experience (she had 12,500+ hours of total flight time). The first officer had 5000+ hours total time and 1,100 in the 737.
[According to standard airline protocol, the captain as the pilot monitoring was the person responsible for running all of the checklists and making sure that the plane was properly configured. So, although the first officer had his hands on the controls it was mostly the captain’s job to check that the flaps were set at 40 earlier in the approach.]
This shows the importance for pilots of fighting a persistent human frailty of overcommitment to a plan of action. Every landing should start with a brief about how to go-around and when to go-around (go-around = “add power and start fresh”).
Where else do we see this? Here are a few examples:
- Entrepreneurs spend a lot more time in ailing companies than is rational. Why not have airline-style criteria before going into a startup about when you will admit failure, e.g., “If revenues are not at least $X by Date Y, I am taking a job at a Fortune 500 company”?
- I attended a hearing on family law at the Massachusetts State House, Joint Committee on the Judiciary (sharing some data from a statistical study on divorce litigation in Middlesex County). One loser parent after another went up to testify about how they had gone broke paying lawyers (up to $2.7 million per case) to fight against a judge’s early ruling that their plaintiff would be the winner parent (getting the house, the kids, and the tax-free child support profits). All of them would have been far better off if they’d walked away from the situation (including unfortunately their children) after the first temporary order favoring the other parent. (They could have heeded the advice of a lawyer quoted in the Massachusetts chapter: “You know that the game is rigged. Why are you swinging at every pitch?”)
- I had lunch yesterday with an executive from a mid-sized health insurance company. He pointed out that organizations as a whole can overcommit. “After Obamacare it doesn’t make sense to keep going as a mid-sized business. That’s what Anthem buying Cigna is about. Our company should be selling itself to United or Anthem but people can’t accept the situation.”
What do readers think? Are there more situations in life where on could apply airline-style stabilized approach criteria that, if exceeded, would call for a go-around? If so, what are they?
> (including unfortunately their children)
You’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t, and compared to other damnations the damnation here with either action is especially fucked.
Your friend said:
>After Obamacare it doesn’t make sense to keep going as a mid-sized business.
Did s/he give a reason why this is so? Is it due to regulatory burden or is it something to do with having scale to compete (but why)? What changes did Obamacare make to make it so only the large survive?
“You know that the game is rigged. Why are you swinging at every pitch?”
You can tell people that the game is rigged and show them all the stats, but they just won’t believe it when it comes to themselves. THEY will explain to the judge what a lying, cheating b*tch their wife is and the kindly judge will surely understand. And when that doesn’t work the 1st time, they go back and ask for re-hearings and appeal , etc. Most lawyers aren’t going to tell them anyway that it’s a lost cause while the client still has $ to pay legal fees. When the client is out of $, that’s when you give him the “game is rigged” speech and tell him to throw in the towel.
Izzie: The “game is rigged” disclosure was from a general practice attorney to his friend. It was not from a divorce litigator to a paying client.
I don’ know about the other stuff, but I know that when I recently was landing at Lincoln Park (a tight runway for someone that flies out of Santa Monica) I went around twice in my little Diamondstar. It was a warm July day, the plane was pretty loaded and there didn’t seem to be enough margin for error. I wanted complete comfort.
Plus I like flying and if you go around twice you get two more trips in the pattern.
I’ve always found that the lessons beat into me by that dictator in the right hand seat of that C-150, so long ago, have worked out well for my life. Know all the numbers, have a check list (and follow it ) for every eventuality and whatever you are thinking you want to say, say it out loud three times before you “push to talk”.
Phil, have you read Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman?
In the book, Kahneman explains that people tend to gamble if they are going to experience loss, instead of taking the certain loss. Loss is already painful as it is, but most people will take the gamble (litigate in divorce, continue funding a doomed project, remain in a bad relationship, the list goes on) instead of cutting their losses. It apparently takes large amounts of cognitive effort not to double down on such bad decisions, which is why it is so persistent.
Jdh: Why does it make sense for insurers to consolidate? http://www.wsj.com/articles/obamacares-oligopoly-wave-1434755295 explains: “the economics of ObamaCare reward scale over competition. Benefits are standardized and premiums are de facto price-controlled. With margins compressed to commodity levels, buying more consumers via mergers is simpler than appealing to them with better products, to the extent the latter is still legal. Synergies across insurer combinations to reduce administrative overhead and other expenses also look better for shareholders.”
Jor: I have read Thinking, Fast and Slow. I’m not sure that it completely explains the aviation go-around stuff because the cost of a go-around is minimal and, in the case of an airline pilot, is not incurred by the pilot.