I know I have written this before, but I can’t help but repeat myself because this funny line from former Utah Jazz guard Frank Layden applies to this situation.
When dealing with a young player with an attitude problem, the coach asked the youngster if it was apathy or indifference.
Layden said the player responded, “Coach, I don’t care and I don’t know.”
Perhaps that’s what it is with people who manufacture airplanes because there have been a plethora of problems lately in the industry. Planes have skidded off runways and lost tires after takeoff. And, of course, topping the list is the January 5 incident. That’s when a door panel blew a section of the fuselage off an Alaska Airlines jet mid-flight.
And the year isn’t even three months old.
Needless to say, it’s been a rocky start,
and you hope and pray that it doesn’t get any worse.
But as investigators from the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board investigate these issues, they should maybe start with the basic premise that it is apathy or indifference among maintenance workers who assemble these planes.
Neither case would be an appealing scenario.
If you don’t know or you don’t care about
people flying almost six miles up in the sky, you have serious problems.
But that could be the root cause here.
Are Apathy and Indifference the Root Cause?
For instance, in the Alaska Airlines incident, it could be a simple problem of failing to have screws in place. Investigators
have reported that screws were not in place in some instances or missing
altogether. A screw! Something you can buy at Home Depot for a couple of bucks.
It’s either apathy or indifference. Either you don’t care, or you don’t know.
It’s a stretch, but maybe these investigators must drill down as far as possible. Are we paying these people or their supervisors enough? Enough to care about their daily duties?
Perhaps all these cases of mechanical failures are anomalies. Or maybe too many instances have happened too close together to think otherwise. The problem is this isn’t about a pen that won’t write. You can’t just refill the ink and think the problem is solved. This is an airplane we are talking about. And hundreds of lives are at stake every time one takes off.
Apathy and indifference? Those are some
things to think about.
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