ABSTRACT
Flight-deck crews are sometimes sceptical when flight attendants report operational problems. In 1988, on approach into Nashville, an American Airlines flight attendant and an off-duty first officer notified the cockpit of smoke in the cabin. In September of 1995, a DC-10 bound for Frankfurt inadvertently landed in Brussels despite the fact that both passengers and flight attendants were apparently aware of the error through cabin map displays. This chapter explores the differences between the two crews, some of the ramifications of those differences on flight safety, and suggest intervention strategies for ameliorating those differences. It focuses on the model that contributes to the creation and perpetuation of two cultures aboard the commercial jet transports of today. The cockpit door provides a physical barrier that exacerbates psychosocial differences and isolation. The psychosocial barrier encompasses social attributes such as age and gender differences, racial and national culture differences.
