Originally Posted by
fox niner
Who would call who Hocam and why
"Hocam" literally means "my teacher" so it is quite appropriate to call one's instructor that. However, "hoca" is quite similar to Hebrew "rabbi", meaning "teacher" but traditionally far more often used to denote priest. In contemporary general use , "hocam" is a honorific liberally bestowed on the senior people.
Now, the idea that we should "not be coy or PC about these sort accidents" has some merit in it but all to often it boils down to racist BS, based on severe ignorance of what HF people wrote and meant when analyzing cultural factors. Before we go on let's clear up a few things.
First, there is no such a thing as an American, Turkish, Soviet, Roman-Catholic, AfD or any other culturally affected aerodynamics, aircraft performance or similar. Yes, engineering solutions are culturally affected but in order to be successful, they can differ in details only. The aeroplane is a machine, it can't care at all about pilot's: political beliefs, religious affiliation, gender, age, social status, experience... just name it. It just demands to be flown properly here and now. There are few ways to do that but the crew has some leeway how to get to them.
Second, there are some cultural traits that are really not compatible with high risk activities like flying, e.g. avoiding face loss, so flying in some countries really entails greater culture-related risk. Aplenty of folks try to interpret it negatively; if there are worse cultures then there must be better ones and then overextend it into idea then there must be best and really go over the top with the notion that the best culture is perfect. Idea that one's own culture is the best is actually basic human trait. Unfortunately, even the societies whose cultural norms are best adjusted to the business of flying have their issues that have to be dealt with. It's all so nice to concentrate just on the last crash and think "How nice if the local mores allowed the first officer to be more assertive" but assertiveness comes at a cost; it is a trait associated with high individualism and self-reliance. As a downside, the societies promoting these can easily produce selfish and reckless individuals, caring only about themselves and those who perceives as his social group (e.g. his company, in the meaning of the business entity). Such a culture may result in, for example, designer bureau covering their aeroplane's shortcomings with potentially lethal crutch and then bullying the certifying authorities and airlines into accepting everything is actually all right. Legal boilerplate: I'm not claiming such a thing actually happened, I'm just warning what may happen if we consider our nation god's gift to aviation and every other aviationally challenged while failing to check what our aeroplane makers and aviation authority are actually doing.
Third: jump from realizing that our culture actually fares better than others when flight safety is considered to getting an idea that we need to graft our weltanschaaung onto everyone to improve safety requires a lot of magical (EK Gann would say: medieval) thinking. It's not very damaging and I find it mildly amusing when such ideas are posted on anonymous forum but quite misjudged when actually tried. Yes, there was attempt at that and well-meaning folks that took part in it are still baffled why it didn't work and why those Far Eastern people rejected their enlightened teachings as soon as they left, after all they unambiguously pointed out what was done wrong and how to fix it. Culture is changeable but it has a lot of inertia. For all the talk about steep cockpit authority gradient that overrides even F/Os self-preservation instinct, the captain that plonked his fuel starved DC-8 into the woods didn't go by the surname Brumoğlu but rather McBroom. Even better, take "Fate is the Hunter". Read just the dedication. Heavy stuff, isn't it? So, if Americans came from there to here, it is doable but not overnight and needs careful adjusting instead of attempting to make a clear break. No matter what the aviation people believe in privately, while discharging their professional functions they need to believe that worldly life of the people who fly is something precious and has to be protected by all means available. I don't think anyone would be able to find contemporary culture whose basic tenets would be at odds with that, issue is with the ways of knowing and performing the aforementioned means at the proper time.
Now, without any prejudice about whether the story is true or its location, regarding the "captain landed from unstabilized approach and F/O didn't dare to say a thing" it is not even a half of the story. The real issue is what happened to captain after the FDM discovered transgression. If the incident got buried, or worse; if the captain was commended for salvaging the difficult approach, the message the F/O gets is that stabilized approach criteria, no matter how often written in OMs or mentioned at refreshers & CBTs, are merely there as a rule to satisfy the bureaucrats and not realize they are a tool to save one's head.
Regarding the non-supporting company, personally, I am in far better luck now than previously but it still didn't change my long ago conceived plan of performing my flights in the way that would allow me too keep my job, my licence and my life at the end of each, in ascending order of importance. So far, it has served me well.