I've seen a couple of posts on here about cultural issues, and I thought I'd inject some thoughts. I'm a strategic communications professional with over 10 years experience in crisis communications, speak Japanese and Indonesian (both pretty badly these days, sadly), and have worked in both countries, as well as a bunch of other places.
I would request that we please stop using the term "Asia." Both my undergrad and grad degrees are from academic departments calling themselves "Asian Studies," but on the first day in each, we were told that "Asia refers to a land mass if you're not too hung up about accuracy," and nothing else. If you say "Asian" to someone in the US, they likely will think of China/Japan/Korea, if you say "Asian" to someone in the UK, they likely will think of India or Pakistan. Indonesia is as different from either of those as it is from Iowa.
The cultural aspect of this investigation is going to be really complex, because it involves: a Javanese pilot with military and civilian experience, a French pilot with civilian piloting and corporate experience, probably Javanese ATC--all of whom were operating in a third language: English. And, the pilots were further influenced by whatever corporate culture exists at Air Asia. So that's what, at least seven cultures interacting? There is some evidence that just the use of the foreign language can actually make one behave in a way that's less culturally native.
So my thoughts on how to do the socio-cultural analysis of this: 1) wait until the cockpit voice recorder is recovered so we can do content analysis of the interaction between the captain, first officer, and ATC; 2) wait until interviews are done of people who knew the pilot and first officer and knew something about how they worked together; 3) stop using the term "Asian" to describe the relevant culture here. Communication during the flight could be relevant to figuring out what went wrong: discussion between the pilots about the weather, their plans on how to deal with it, their communication as stress levels soared during the final few minutes.
Sorry for this long post on something that ultimately probably will be a bit tangential to the investigation, but I've spent my career battling bad decisions based on poorly-informed stereotypes of socio-cultural norms in "Asia."
***speculation*** Having said that, I'll now deal a couple of stereotypes about Javanese: many people expect "Asians" to have a hierarchical culture because they carry stereotypes of NE Asia (China, Japan, Korea) when they refer to "Asia." But, Javanese tend (tend!) to be far more consensus-driven than hierarchical. They tend to like to discuss issues at length, usually asking the other side what they think first, and only then offering their view of the facts. They often will say what they think you want to hear before making requests (that really are requirements or orders), and then verbally, at least, end in ambiguity. This takes place in the context of respect (different from deference) for elders. That, of course, might go straight down the tubes when dealing with an experienced military officer sitting in what he might have thought of as his "home turf"--the cockpit.
Finally, having read this forum and the one about MH370 with great interest, I think my next lunchtime hobby should be a socio-cultural study of the pilots and engineers on this forum.
