Waiting On Disaster To Bring About Change
Saturday, 10 April 2010
A Tupolev Tu-154, designed in the mid-1960′s, crashed this morning near Smolensk. The President, Lech Kaczynski, and many of Poland’s top political and military leaders, attempted to land in thick fog against the advice of air traffic controllers.
It occurs to me that we have a couple of things going on here that are emblematic of how we all operate:
1) We wait for disaster to institute positive change;
2) We go on faith that “everything will be okay” in the face of better advice;
3) For years advisers have been saying that Poland needed to upgrade their air fleet. I venture to guess that planes were not upgraded due to economic constraints. After this disaster, where the majority of the country’s political and military elite died tragically, maybe now Poland will get better planes;
4) The pilot and crew of the Tupolev Tu-154 decided to attempt to land the plane despite the adverse fog conditions and against the better advice of air traffic controllers.
Why did this happen? We can only speculate.
The tragedy should be a wake-up call to all of us: do not push the envelope; do not operate on faith alone; do not let economic considerations deform your better judgment.
Source: New York Times article President of Poland Killed in Plane Crash in Russia
