Playing the Blame Game

It seems that whenever there is a disaster like the Red Line Metro crash here in DC this past Monday, everyone is on the prowl looking for someone to pin the blame on. What galled me the most however was seeing news footage that night of reporters standing outside hospitals and emergency facilities looking to get comments from passengers/victims of the crash. Sure Freedom of the Press is great but isn't there a time to be sensible and sensitive? I understand the need for the media to want to provide answers to the public as soon as is possible but does it have to be at the expense of receiving medical care. Now I grant you that not all reporters at the hospitals or at the accident scene were doing the same thing but in our quest to find out who to blame this recent accident on, everyone is seeking to be the one with the answer.

I find it odd that at times like this or in relation to incidents like these, everyone begins to treat the accident like a math equation. Most people who studied in school will tell you that math is a subject where there is one and only one answer. I'm sure there are math wizards out there who will say that I'm misstating it by saying that or that I am over simplifying things but let's face it, when you add one and one you will get two. That being the case we often want to then be able to point to one and only one cause for any accident or mishap. Take for example the recent case of Air France flight 447. Although at the time of this writing the search for the 'black box' flight recorder (which oddly is actually bright orange) continues in the hope of understanding what happened to the flight. Early autopsies on victims recovered from the crash indicate body trauma that would point to the fact that the bodies hit the water after falling through the air. What does that mean? That the plane potentially broke up in mid-air and the bodies fell to the ocean below.

What was the result of that announcement? Everyone has begun looking at airframes in order to ensure that there are no problems at all. Result of this mania? Boeing announced earlier this week that the planned maiden flight of their 787 Dreamliner prototype would be delayed due to stress analysis on the fuselage revealing a series of stress fractures along the body of the plane at approximately 20 different locations. While project leads are stressing that this in no way means that the plane is not safe, they do state that they'd rather err on the side of caution. Kind of how Airbus did when they recommended that all airlines owning Airbus 330 model planes (which is what Air France 447 was) replace and upgrade their air speed sensors as some of the final data available from the plane indicated that the airspeed indicator was not functioning properly.

Now what you'll hear in news reports in subsequent days will be about how much training the pilot received (in light of reports of pilot error in previous air accidents), when the last maintenance on the vehicle was (problems with the systems on the vehicle -- such as the Airbus 330 or the age of the train in the Metro crash on Monday) or the age of the system which the vehicle is operating on (again, the Metro train involved in Monday's crash was among the first cars to enter service with Metro in 1976). We'll point to these things in the media like the smoking gun and speak as if these are the only causes that could be the reason behind the latest disaster. Everyone who is anyone seeking media attention (whether it is an official with the National Transportation Safety Board or the Mayor) will want to be the first to point out what the problems were and what the 'probably cause' was.

While this quest for the truth is all well and good, can't we also look at these incidents and see how we can improve things? We in the public can also be held accountable if we think about it. Operating costs are going up as is the cost of most everything else these days so wouldn't it make sense that the cost of services like air travel or subway travel would rise as well? What does that have to do with anything? Well in the case of recent airline crashes, some of the blame has been shifted to the pilots and their lack of training. Not all have as much time behind the controls like Captain Sullenberger who successfully landed his plane on the Hudson earlier this year but we won't have many of them flying the friendly skies if we aren't willing to pay them or will want the cheaper less experienced alternative to keep ticket prices down. Same goes for the subway system. Certainly there may be human error involved but if we rely on a system that is decades old because the public won't stand for higher ticket prices if they ride the rails, aren't we partially to blame too?