I find this comment and ATC Watcher’s earlier post rebuking someone for mentioning suicide quite interesting in terms of the intersection of culture and safety. Westerners on here are always quick to highlight adverse impacts of other cultures’ social norms on safety, and are quick to criticise when foreign investigations steer clear of taboo subjects. Typical examples might be absolute deference to authority, the need for those who’ve erred to save face, and avoidance of any criticism of the national government, its airline or its regulator. All are grist for the mill on here every time an Asian carrier suffers an accident.
Now let’s turn the lens back on ourselves. Suicide is probably the only Western social taboo which intersects with safety. Does that mean it should not be postulated or discussed? None of us would argue that the ‘Asian’ taboos should stay off limits where safety is concerned; why should our taboos be treated differently? That would be exceptionalism. So I say that discussion of suicide is fair game in a safety and accident prevention context.
To ATC Watcher and others who would argue that discussing it is in poor taste, I would say firstly that in recent years there have been
enough confirmed or officially-postulated cases that any lay person posting on Facebook could readily come up with the theory themselves and bring scrutiny on the families; it’s not as if us ignoring the subject would prevent that. And I would point also to the statement by the captain’s family; I’m sorry RTM Boy, there is evidence (albeit only a scrap) posted in the thread above. Hopefully you missed that and are not wilfully ignoring it, although such would be the power of a taboo. (Edit: the link has vanished up-thread so I'm reposting it
here).
Of course I hope that it is not the cause of this accident, but it makes no sense to discard the possibility at this point. Anyone know if this carrier has a ‘rule of two’ or whether the subject has been considered by any Asian regulators besides the Japanese?