The Lessons of ValuJet 592
As a reconstruction of this terrible crash suggests, in complex systems some accidents may be "normal"—and trying to prevent them all could even make operations more dangerous
The Atlantic,
William Langewiesche March 1998 Issue
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1998/03/the-lessons-of-valujet-592/306534/
' . . . So much work was farmed out to temporary employees and independent contractors that ValuJet was sometimes called a "virtual airline." FAA regulators had begun to worry that the company was moving too fast, . . . '
ValuJet could have taken the more standard corporate tact-- safety is our highest priority, we hired very reputable companies, we're always striving to improve our operations, etc.
To me, a name change is almost an admission of guilt.
Okay, so how does it come back to bite them in the ass? And by the way, this is a heck of an interesting article. It
can be read as saying this particular flight went down primarily just due to bad luck. But it's so much more than that, for it builds on the work of Charles Perrow, and argues the case that complexity comes at a higher cost than is generally acknowledged.
complexity —> accident (sometimes)
And I take this to be the guy's basic definition of a "system accident."