"Worse still the captain was driven by the local culture that says that real men don't go around and he too deliberately ducked under."
Actually the local culture is not to be confrontational but to work things out together - admittedly a bit tough where they were
HH,
I agree but there is also very strong pressure to avoid loss of face. I've often been in meetings where Indonesian professionals will avoid expressing their opinion, in case they are shown to be wrong.
On the aviation front, years ago, I was at Kai Tak and saw a Garuda DC-10 bounce so high, I felt sure it would have to go around. However, it descended and flared again, and disappeared in a cloud of brake smoke at the far end of the runway! A close call.