Ethiopian airliner down in Africa

[wetbehindear]

737 Driver
"the possible existence of a steep authority gradient on the flight deck as potential threats."

Cue to possible existence of a steep authority gradient on a flight deck by employing metrics used to evaluate and judge Korean Air and third world cockpits.

Cactus fifteen fifty minus one, UsAir flight 1539 revisited.

15:29:45.4 hot-1 ok lets go put the flaps out, put the flaps out. ( this is not a proper command)
15:29:48 hot-2 flaps out? (Skiles not sure about what his captain wants him to do, Sully silent.)
15:30:01 hot-2 got flaps out.

15:30:06 cam-2 hundred and seventy knots.
15:30:09 cam-2 got no power on either one? try the other one.
15:30:16 hot-2 hundred and fifty knots.
15:30:17 hot-2 got flaps two, you want more? (Skiles somehow sensed that Sully wants to stay airborne so he gave him best glide flaps.)

Mitigated Speech and Plane Crashes (Outliers, p 195)

1- Command: “Turn thirty degrees right.” That’s the most direct and explicit way of making a point imaginable. It’s zero mitigation.
2- Crew Obligation Statement: “I think we need to deviate right about now.”Notice the use of “we” and the fact that hte request is now much less specific. It’s a little softer.
3- Crew Suggestion: “Let’s go around the weather.” Implicit in that statement is “we’re in this together.”
4- Query: “Which direction would you like to deviate?” That’s even softer than a crew suggestion, because the speaker is conceding that he’s not in charge.
5- Preference: “I think it would be wise to turn left or right.”
6- Hint: “That return at twenty-five miles looks mean.” This is the most mitigated statement of all.

In that scale above ” you want more?” is a “querry” in line 4 and a “hint” ( you should have more ) in line 6. Both indicative of mitigating speech is employed. By mitigating speech being employed we deduce that there is a strong authority gradient in the cockpit.