Philipp, thank you for your excellent points and for taking time to write
about them, really appreciated. Well, understanding is a mutual process and
we both need to try to understand better what each of us is saying. I think
I reacted to the context of your first message which did not include ANY
mention of the unbelievable smear tactics used by the Swiss authorities and
the media that obediently followed this representations all over the world
(even in Russia itself!). So, my intent was to reconstruct this context for
the people reading you message here and now, on this web site.
You are still saying it was mostly Swiss authorities only who wanted to
place blame on the pilot and then on controller. But what about all of the
newspapers all over the world? Why did they so obediently follow exactly one
side - Swiss authorities and presented the facts so uncritically during
several days (not one or two) after the crash? I mean, I don't think NYT is
owned by Swiss authorities, is it? That this is in line with a usual
stereotype about Russia was the reason, I think, that one side of the
dispute intitially was given a voice. Moreover, I have reasons to believe
that if not much more open ivestigation than in previous years and not much
more open space of communication beyond mainstream newspapers, the one side
might have well remained voiced over the other (if examples are needed about
media distortions, I could provide them. Perhaps French skating judge could
serve as an interesting one).
In view of what happened following the collision, I would be double cautious
also about the alleged discrepancy in training (now widely reported in the
media, not just on avaiation sites). As to whether instructions indeed
differ, my understanding is that this is a disputed point at the moment.
Reports by Russian aviation officials today state that instructions do not
differ on this particular point. This needs to be explored, as well as what
exactly and what kind of pilots (international vs domestic pilots, pilots
trained now or years ago etc etc) say on the internet needs to be looked at.
To be fair I need to mention also the context from which my reaction came. I
was writing as someone who spent six years in Switzerland and learned first
hand the traditional "top-down" view on Russia in the media there. If I had
time, I could reconstruct how stereotypes were created and circulated in
this particular media during this particular time period (Swiss are no
excpetion, I do not mean to launch a new stereotype here, I saw similar
things in Germany, for example, and in this country too, well, not just with
the French judge).
It is just that I wanted you to see that the stereotypes did play a role in
this story and perhaps even continue to play a role even on the various
sites, and that stereotypes can be deadly, so we all have to be vigilant,
for our own sake.
This is not a minor issue. Stereotypes are circulated and reinforced because
they are needed for some purposes, very practical ones. That is why the
bigger issue for me is what are the reasons behind these stereotyping of
Russia. My guess, and this is a separate point, is that they allow for a
comfortable view that one of the two systems that had been in a deadly
competition for years during the cold war (and both had been deformed and
disfigured by this competition), collapsed because exactly it is just one of
them that was the seat of all problems and evils, whereas the other one was,
well, close to perfect. This is a comfortable view because the alternative
is that perhaps both were not perfect, and the weakest of the two, the
'worse' so to say, has collapsed only to be followed by the other one,
though later. Not that I want this to happen, but the situation does not
look rosy to mee at the moment.
Note that collapse does not mean "an end", but just a change, a new
beginning. The collapse worked, incidentally, quite well for Russia which is
in a better shape now than before the crisis.
Anna
-----Original Message-----
From: Phillip Capper
To: xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
Sent: 7/10/2002 10:08 PM
Subject: RE: novelty and stereotypes: re collision
Anna,
Thankyou for your comments. but I think you misunderstand me. I was
reporting not on the media reports of the accident, but on the nature of
the
electronic conversations amongst pilots, including Russian pilots. It
was
not me who said that Russian pilots are trained differently, but the
Russian
pilots themselves on these discussion forums. The conversation on the
listservs has gone something like this:
Western Pilots: "Why did he obey ATC and not his TCAS RA?"
Russian Pilots: "Because that is what we are trained to do."
Western Pilots: "Oh my God! We're trained to do the opposite. What does
ICAO say?"
..... followed by a gradual descent into linguistic chaos.
Nor was I suggesting that it was the Russians themselves who sought to
blame
the Swiss controller. In fact it is primarily Swiss ATC managers who
want to
blame the controller (as their second choice to the Russian pilot, who
is
increasingly not a good candidate for scapegoating), while European ATC
unions want to blame the Swiss management.
I agree with you entirely about the appalling smears on the Russians
that
immediately followed the accident. The discussion forums that I was
reporting on have a general agreement that:
(a) almost all Russian pilots flying on international routes speak
almost
perfect English, in fact better English than most non native speakers of
English flying internationally. English ATC officers have commented that
they are better equipped than most American pilots when flying in
Europe,
while American ATC have said they'd rather control Russians than any
other
non US pilots:
(b) the Tupoley was fully equipped to the same standards as the DHL
Boeing:
(c) Russian pilots flying on international routes exhibit a very high
standard of ATC discipline - better, in fact, than most western pilots:
(d) in all communications and actions up to the moment of the collision
the
pilot of the Tupolev had spoken perfect English and had obeyed all ATC
instructions precisely.
So I believe that my initial post was intended to give exactly the
opposite
impression to the one you attribute to it. I apologise if I
miscommunicated.
However, I disagree with your point about ICAO international operational
standards. They are not absolute in the sense that ICAO procedural
documents
are only open to one interpretation. That is precisely one of the
'novelties' that is being learned about in the professional aftermath of
the
collision. Pilots of all nations in the discussion forums are engaged in
very vigorius debate about what current ICAO standard procedures on the
use
of TCAS (i.e. on board collision avoidance equipment) actually are. It
turns
out that different countries' internal aviation authorities have a while
range of different intepretations, with the Russian intepretation just
one
of many. It just transpires that in this case the Russian interpetation
was
the one that presented the flight crew with a terrible dilemma when the
two
contradictory instructions came in simultaneously.
There is now nobody (or at least nobody who is still speaking up) on the
discussion forums who is impugning the competence of professionalism of
the
Russian aircrew. It was purely a matter of chance that it was the
Russian,
and not the DHL, crew who were faced with that dilemma. As you rightly
say,
this is still not the clear case in the media.
Phillip Capper,
Centre for Research on Work, Education and Business Ltd. (WEB Research),
Level 13
114 The Terrace
(PO Box 2855)
WELLINGTON
New Zealand
Ph: +64 4 499 8140
Fx: +64 4 499 8395
Mb: +64 021 519 741
-----Original Message-----
From: Stetsenko, Anna [mailto:AStetsenko@gc.cuny.edu]
Sent: Thursday, 11 July 2002 1:25 p.m.
To: 'xmca@weber.ucsd.edu '
Subject: novelty and stereotypes: re collision
Hi Philipp,
exactly because, as you say, "the collision over Germany is generating
very
high levels of activity at present," let me add a piece of activity by
expanding on the context of what happened in and around this collision.
Not
suprisingly, because as we know context is important, this can add a new
light and reveal whether we are dealing with novelty or stereotypes
here.
What happened IN the colision still remains to be determined. What is
pretty
clear however is what happened immediately after it, and this is the
piece
you skipped over completely in your description. Immediately after the
collision, all the media, but especially the Swiss and German,
uncritically
following the reports by Swiss controllers, blamed the Russian pilots
for
the accident based on assertions (and I list just few of them) that: 1.
Russian pilots have been given several warnings about being on a
collision
course well ahead of the accident (first reported as several minutes)
but
did not react because (here several versions were circulting) they did
not
speak English; they were tired; they were not trained properly, and 2.
Russian aircraft did not have on board collision warning systems
(because
Russian aircrafts in general do not have adequate technical equipment).
Accompanying media reports (NTV channel in Germany, for example, believe
me)
at the same time were reporting, as a matter of fact, that "the victims
were
anyway not children, because in Russia children after the age of 14 are
not
considered to be children."
I cannot even comment on the last blatant lie, but will note that the
rest
of this media coverage, and the related statements by Swiss controllers,
had
to be later revealed as exactly that - blantant lies. These were clear
attempts to cover up (the crime or the accident) and this needs to be
named
as such and treated respectively as a separate crime. I do not see yet
this
cover up crime being named for what it is in the media. Added to the
cover
up should also be attempts to hide the facts that the Swiss controller
was
ALONE in violation of all the rules, that he had to lead 5 other
flights,
one of which was landing at exactly the time of the collision, that one
critical piece of the Skyguide equipment was shut down and the only
telephone line was also shut down (as German controllers were making
desparate attempts to warn the Swiss controller on the phone but the
line
was dead).
Now, as the responsibility of Swiss controllers is surfacing, the
discourse
has shifted to statements that "both sides, Swiss and Russian are trying
to
blame each other" and you indirectly reproduced this discourse in your
message too. However, I see a difference between blaming someone for
what
this someone has done (this, I believe, should be called "finding out
who is
responsible") versus blaming someone for what one did not do and lying
about
facts (this I believe is a "cover up"). I have not seen anywhere,
including
Russian media (at least the leading newspapers) any blame being placed
on
Swiss controllers based on lies about their conduct. Do you see the
difference? So, there is no equivalence for both sides. Can you give me
examples on the contrary that Russian tried to blame smth on Swiss
controllers that then turned out to be not true?
Now, as to novelty. Actually, unlike your statement (that follows most
recent media reports) that Russian pilots are trained differently from
pilots from other countries, the standards of training are exactly the
same
as established by Internationa Association of Civil Aviation. Otherwise,
Russian pilots would not be allowed and would not be able to fly on
international routs. Moreover, the international standard instruction
for on
borad systems of collision warning does say that all the decisions must
be
made by pilots only in consultation with the controller.
So, the fact of the matter is that Russian pilots do speak English and
do
follow standard international instructions. The other thing is that when
you
have 44 seconds to react to conflicting warnings, there is no much time
for
consultations.
Further analysis will show if this analysis is correct. However, I would
really like it if you see that your description is skewed in one
direction -
that of thinking that there was something peculiar about Russian pilots
or
their training that might have caused the collision. (and as I said, I
know
that you follow the media but.. critical view of the media is needed).
That
is whay, I tend to see your description as a continuation of a
comfortbale
STEREOTYPE that Russian means inferior and Swiss (=Western) means
superior.
I do not see much novelty emerging in the situation so far, I see
playing
over and over of THE SAME OLD STEREOTYPES. Novelty does not grow on the
soil
of old stereotypes, I would think.
By the way, it could be, it just could be that the same stereotype did
play
into what happened IN the collision too, not just around it. I believe
(this
needs to be checked and will be checked I hope) that the situation
exactly
as it emerged leading to the collision (in its exact timing etc) might
not
have been forseen in the international instructions and repsetive rules
of
conduct for pilots might not have been clearly described. Then, what
perhaps
happened was extremely tragic and, again, tainted by stereotypes. It
could
be that the Russian pilot, having such a short time to react, and under
competing directions, acted based upon the typical stereotype about
Swiss as
equal to "perfect," "very exact" (if you say smth is very exact you say
"like a Swiss watch" in Russian). This is a very common stereotype in
Russia
and it has been reinforced in recent years of self-scrutiny and
self-criticism in Russian society in a trend of seeing all western as
superior.
This then would be a tragic picture of how deadly, literally,
stereotypes
can be. Given than no one on land was hurt only by some miracle (there
could
have been many victims of course in that beautiful part of Germany where
the
planes went down, I' ve seen this part many times), I would really ask
you
to watch a bit more carefully, for your own sake too, the stereotyping
processes that continue to unfold.
Does it make sense to you?
Anna
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu Aug 01 2002 - 01:00:11 PDT