Anyone who has read about a plane crash will quickly realise that there is usually no single cause. Normally, so many factors compound or line up, as though brewing a perfect storm, before chaos is unleashed in the blink of an eye.

The deadliest crash in aviation history, which happened in Tenerife in March 1977, serves as a good starting point here. I wrote about this accident in 2022 in a blog I called The Small Big Events of Life. My reason for such a title was that this accident was a classic example of numerous incidents, some small, all lining up and causing a disaster. If only one of those incidents had not happened, or had even been delayed, the accident probably would not have happened.

The accident involved two Queens of the Sky – Boeing 747s belonging to KLM and Pan Am, respectively. Neither of these planes was supposed to be at this particular airport. They had been diverted there because of a bomb threat at their intended destination, Gran Canaria. As I mentioned, so many things went wrong that day, but the actions of Captain Veldhuyzen van Zanten in the KLM flight did not help matters.

The captain was determined to leave Tenerife. Because of the size of the airport and the number of planes diverted there, planes had to taxi on the runway instead of the usual taxiway. After turning his massive plane at the end of the runway, captain van Zanten immediately pushed his throttles forward to begin the take-off roll. Another plane, the Pan Am 747, was still taxiing on the same runway, yet to find its exit. The first officer advised the captain that take-off clearance had not been granted. Seconds later, the flight engineer also expressed concern that they were taking off while another plane was still on the runway.

Captain van Zanten’s response was, “Oh yes.”

And this massive bird continued rolling down the runway.

Captain van Zanten was literally the face of KLM at the time. His images were used by the airline in various publications. He had an elite reputation and commanded enormous authority in his cockpit. The hierarchical structure in the cockpit that morning, and indeed during that time, created a steep power gradient that made it very difficult for the first officer or flight engineer to boldly speak up, let alone challenge the decisions of the captain.

Again, so many factors had to go wrong for this accident to happen. But one can still wonder what would have happened if the other pilots had strongly opposed the take-off, delaying it even by a minute.

In another blog in the series, which I entitled Losing Focus of the Goal, I looked at the similar crashes of Eastern Air Lines Flight 401 and United Airlines Flight 173. In both cases, a small landing gear light, which was supposed to indicate that the landing gear had been successfully lowered and locked, did not illuminate.

The crews in both cockpits became focused on investigating the problem. In the case of Flight 401, none of the three cockpit crew members realised that the autopilot had disconnected. The plane ended up crashing in the Florida Everglades while the pilots were still investigating what had happened with their landing gear. In the case of Flight 173, while the crew were caught up with the landing gear light, they failed to realise that they were running out of fuel. The plane crashed, and ten people on board lost their lives.

Now, I know that if you are like me, the questions you would probably be asking are: How could this happen? How can three trained pilots be so preoccupied by a small light that they forget to fly their plane? Couldn’t they have assigned one member to monitor the flight while the other two did the troubleshooting? How could they crash without noticing? How could no one notice that they were running out of fuel?

I asked these same questions in Losing Focus of the Goal. My objective in that piece, as the title suggests, was to draw a lesson or two about how even small distractions can make us lose focus of the goal. This time, however, I look at these same accidents through a different lens: aviation’s response to the inevitable presence of human error, captured in what I think is the most beautiful acronyms in aviation safety – CRM.

After United Airlines Flight 173, the industry was prompted to develop Crew Resource Management, or CRM. It is a training system that optimises all available resources, including people, hardware and information, to ensure a safe flight. It targets human factors such as communication errors, fatigue and poor teamwork, with the aim of catching mistakes early.

It is a beautiful thing when CRM is used properly. It has been credited with preventing countless disasters. Think of United Airlines Flight 232, which suffered a catastrophic failure of its tail engine. Think of the Miracle on the Hudson, when, shortly after take-off, the plane lost power in both engines. Or think about the latest blog I wrote in this series, The Story of Qantas 32. The outcomes of these and many other flights would have been very different had their respective crews not used the resources available to them efficiently, even under the extremely difficult circumstances they faced.

I would go so far as to say that one of the major reasons flying is so safe today is that a lot of work goes into preventing such critical situations from arising in the first place. Furthermore, effective CRM is one of the reasons why some serious incidents, like the ones listed above, do not end in catastrophe.

Human error is an inevitable part of human nature. Wherever people are, mistakes follow. That is why, to me, CRM is not just a concept that should live in cockpits. Its principles can be applied to work, teams, families, friendships and so many other parts of life.

It seems like common sense to say, “We are stronger together.” But that, in and of itself, is not enough. We need to find ways of using the resources available to us effectively.

What if we listened more to people, even when they had less authority than we did? What if we paid more attention to the people on our teams, so that we knew when we needed to step in and lend a helping hand? What if we learnt to communicate more effectively, making sure we were on the same page as the people we were talking to? What if we learnt to use each other’s strengths to ensure that whatever task lay before us was done in the best way possible? What if we could challenge the people we work with in love? What if, when we were challenged, we did not feel threatened?

What kind of world would we live in then?

What I know is this: next time I get on a plane, I hope I will remember that it is not just the technical skill of the individual pilots that will get me safely to my destination. It is also their ability to communicate, to listen, to challenge one another and to work together.

Perhaps the same principles are what will help us reach our various destinations in life.