Airline Crashes Research Articles

Examining decision errors in child protection: A new application of root cause analysis

Case decision making in child protective services typically occurs in stressful, complex environments fraught with uncertainties. Mistakes in judgment and decision making are inevitable under such difficult circumstances. Casework errors resulting from unrecognized risks sometimes lead to the serious injury or untimely death of a child whose caregivers have been the subject of investigation. While it is easy to blame individual caseworkers for poor decision making, it is increasingly recognized that errors are likely to result as much from problems with organizational processes, as individual misjudgments. This paper describes a project whose goals are to uncover decision errors in child protection investigations and trace their origins in cases where children have died during or after an investigation. Root cause analysis, the method chosen for examining project cases, was originally designed to reveal multi-level factors contributing to negative outcomes in other high risk enterprises, such as chemical factory explosions, airline crashes, and failed military operations. To our knowledge, it has not been applied to the study of decision making in human services. An illustration of its use with a case example serves as a springboard for a discussion of the particular approach to analysis we chose, application issues, and implications for practice.

The Plane Truth: Airline Crashes, the Media, and Transportation PolicyThe Plane Truth: Airline Crashes, the Media, and Transportation Policy. By Roger W. Cobb and David M. Primo. (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2003. Pp. 207. $42.95 cloth, $17.95 paper.)

Previous articleNext article No AccessThe Plane Truth: Airline Crashes, the Media, and Transportation Policy The Plane Truth: Airline Crashes, the Media, and Transportation Policy. By Roger W. Cobb and David M. Primo. (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2003. Pp. 207. $42.95 cloth, $17.95 paper.)Mark E. RushefskyMark E. RushefskySouthwest Missouri State University Search for more articles by this author Southwest Missouri State UniversityPDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by The Journal of Politics Volume 67, Number 1February 2005 Sponsored by the Southern Political Science Association Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2508.2005.00318_3.x Views: 31Total views on this site Copyright © 2005, Southern Political Science AssociationPDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

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Lester Salamon, The Resilient Sector: The State of Nonprofit AmericaR.A.W. Rhodes, P. Carmichael, J. McMillan and A. Massey, Decentralising the Civil Service: from Unitary State to Differentiated Polity in the United KingdomBen Pimlott and Nirmola Rao, Governing LondonRoger W. Cobb and David M. Primo, Plane Truth: Airline Crashes, the Media and Transportation PolicyHoward Glennerster, Understanding the Financing of Welfare: What Welfare Costs and How to Pay for itMartin Powell (ed.), Evaluating New Labour's Welfare ReformsLiesbet Hooghe, The European Commission and the Integration of Europe: Images of GovernanceColin J. Bennett and Charles D. Raab, The Governance of Privacy: Policy Instruments in Global PerspectiveRudy B. Andeweg and Galen A. Irwin, Governance and Politics of the NetherlandsJustin Greenwood (ed.), The Challenge of Change in EU Business Associations

AMA President Blames Legal System For Malpractice Insurance Crisis

Back to table of contents Previous article Next article Professional NewsFull AccessAMA President Blames Legal System For Malpractice Insurance CrisisMark MoranMark MoranSearch for more papers by this authorPublished Online:16 Jul 2004https://doi.org/10.1176/pn.39.14.0390020Liability reform remains the number-one legislative priority of the American Medical Association. And reformulating the way physicians are paid under the Medicare program is running just behind.In his opening address at the 2004 annual meeting of the AMA House of Delegates last month in Chicago, AMA President Donald Palmisano, M.D., reiterated the organization's central message on liability reform: rising malpractice premiums threaten access to care by driving physicians from medical practice.He took aim again at the trial lawyers association and at apologists for the insurance industry who claim that stock-market losses in the 1990s are behind the rapid increase in premiums today.“We have debunked the myth that insurance companies' stock-market losses are fueling skyrocketing medical liability premiums,” he said.“ No, what is driving this crisis are the out-of-sight awards some runaway juries are handing out in certain liability cases. Today the average jury award nationwide is $6.2 million, up from $3.9 million in 2001.”Palmisano said that in Mississippi, more than $33 million was awarded in just four medical liability verdicts. And in Pennsylvania, juries returned $15 million and $20 million verdicts on the same day, he said.“Any wonder that our AMA master file from 1997 to 2002 confirms that more than 400 Pennsylvania physicians in just four specialties are no longer practicing medicine in the state?” he asked. “Those doctors are neurosurgeons, orthopedists, obstetricians, and general surgeons. You can't replace those talented individuals from a shelf at the supermarket.”Palmisano called for a sea change in the way medical errors are detected and fixed, replacing a punitive approach that focuses on individual mistakes with a “system quality control” approach that views errors as the result of remediable flaws within an organized system.As a model, he cited the aviation industry, which uses just such an approach in the prevention of airline crashes.“To stop errors, we need to prevent them through improved systems of safety,” Palmisano said. “We need to know how errors occur within a given system and find solutions based on the evidence. Now the fear of lawsuits deters health care professionals from reporting problems and hinders the efforts to determine how to keep them from happening again.“We need to put a reporting system in place where physicians and other health professionals can report errors without fear of litigation.”Palmisano also cited the AMA's proposal for health care reform (see Original article: page 18), which appears as a special communication in the May Journal of the American Medical Association.Running somewhere behind liability reform on the AMA's legislative radar screen is reformulation of Medicare's physician payment formula. Palmisano hailed the passage late last year of the Medicare Modernization Act, which the AMA had backed, but he called again for junking the current physician reimbursement formula.Despite the 1.5 percent across-the-board increase in physician payments for 2004 and 2005 contained in the Medicare reform bill, Palmisano said payment cuts were likely again in the future.“As long as we labor under a flawed Medicare formula that sends us lurching from one payment crisis to the next, we will not rest,” he said. “We face new cuts totaling 35 to 40 percent from 2006 to 2013. Temporary fixes aren't good enough. We need a permanent solution as soon as possible.” ▪ ISSUES NewArchived

Cultural issues in airline crisis communications: A Japan‐US comparative study

Drawing upon Hofstede's (1980, 1991) five dimensions of culture, this study contrasts the organizational responses to two major airline crashes that occurred in 1985 in Japan and the United States. Using a qualitative approach, the study reveals significant cultural differences that affected communications practices by Japan Air Lines and Delta Air Lines. Findings are based upon analysis of 198 US newspaper stories and 196 Japanese newspaper and magazine stories published during the 10 days that followed each disaster. The study reveals significant differences in the use of apology, media strategies, and litigation concerns. The findings suggest that cultural sensitivity is a key to developing a successful crisis communication plan in the airline industry.

Incorporating Enterprise Risk Management Into the Curriculum: The Delta Air Lines Case Study

AbstractThis article describes a group project that was designed and implemented in an MBA‐level corporate risk management class. The primary objective of this project is to integrate the concepts of enterprise risk management into the graduate‐level risk management and insurance curriculum. This project combines both traditional and innovative risk management techniques into one semester‐long group case study. The Delta Air Lines case study was divided into three segments to focus on three distinct objectives. The first component, identification of Delta's horizon risks, is designed to spur creative thinking among the groups. The second component, analysis of workers' compensation claims, is a very traditional risk management exercise in risk evaluation designed to utilize traditional statistical analysis techniques (specifically, trending). The third component is estimating both total loss distributions and layers of loss due to airline crashes for potential capital market risk financing alternatives. This component involves more innovative financial risk management techniques (i.e., distribution fitting and simulation analysis). The objective is to familiarize students with the current techniques being used to evaluate risks that are currently (or potentially) being securitized in the capital markets.

Emergency Medical Preparedness and Response to a Singapore Airliner Crash

A Singapore airline crash in 2000 was the first documented mass casualty incident (MCI) caused by an aircraft disaster in Taiwan. This report reviews the emergency medical preparedness of the airport and examines its effects on the medical response during this incident. The anticipated benefits from the new MCI plan and prior medical preparedness were not achieved during this disaster. Poor compliance with the new MCI plan by the airport authority was noted. Victims were not triaged and did not receive adequate field medical care. Structural problems with the MCI plan were also noted. Site medical teams responding from hospitals could not function as the plan had been designed. This article discusses factors causing the poor compliance, various problems, and related issues in medical response to the incident. As learned from this experience, a properly and practically designed MCI plan, good compliance of responders, and a strong support system of responding agencies are the most important factors for successful emergency response to any MCI.

September 11, 2001

SUMMARY The terrorist attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center and the United Airlines crash in Pennsylvania on September 11, 2001 shook the world. As part of the outpouring of emotions that were the direct result of the attacks, a number of unique Web sites were developed. Additionally, established sites have included 9-11 information or links. This article presents the author's personal experiences on that day, as well as a brief listing of some interesting and useful Web sites.

Risk Factors Associated with Moderate and Serious Injuries Attributable to the 1994 Northridge Earthquake, Los Angeles, California

PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to use emergency department data to estimate levels of morbidity and risk factors due to earthquake-related mechanisms of injury subsequent to an urban night-time earthquake. METHODS: Data were abstracted from 4190 medical records for the month of January, 1994. Injuries attributable to the earthquake were identified through emergency department and medical records. These injuries were: (a) categorized by mechanism of injury; (b) assigned an injury severity score; and (c) linked to structural and geologic data. Proportional polytomous and dichotomous logistic regression were used to estimate risk of more severe injury associated with demographic characteristics, injury characteristics, structural characteristics, and geologic factors. RESULTS: More severe earthquake-related injuries (serious versus moderate and moderate versus minor) were statistically significantly associated with patient age (⩾ 60 years old), upper extremities, falling, multi-family structures, pre-1960 housing, and the 50th percentile of Peak Ground Acceleration, after adjusting for all other available demographic, injury, structural, and geologic characteristics. CONCLUSIONS: The current recommendation of ‘duck, cover, and hold’ might not be optimal during a nighttime earthquake, particularly if individuals are in the padded environment of the bed. Actions such as reaching for or catching objects, bracing, or holding onto perceived stable objects may increase risk for more serious injury. Alternate responses include assuming a tucked position (as in airline crashes) or staying in bed for non-ambulating people. Structural damage and structure size were not associated with more serious injuries, but structure use and age were, leading the authors to suspect that unmeasured socioeconomic factors might impact risk factors. The importance of including population demographic characteristics in hazard modeling is emphasized.

Built-in structural diagnostic with the SMART LayerTM and SMART SuitcaseTM

Abstract Safety and reliability are critical factors in the usage of in-service structures. Undetected structural damages have the likelihood to grow and lead to catastrophic failures, loss of human lives and financial loss. Real-life examples of structural failure occur in airline crashes, rocket/launch vehicle explosions, building and bridge collapses. In order to minimise the possibility of failure, structures have traditionally been designed with a safety factor. However, this may be insufficient since the service conditions under which different structures operate can vary. Over time, the effect of these small variations can accumulate, resulting in a significant difference in their safety level and their residual life. One possible method of ensuring structural safety is to inspect structures frequently to keep abreast of their structural condition. Unfortunately, regular usage of current structural inspection methods can be expensive and labour intensive. Current inspection techniques such as X-ray, ultrasound, c-scan and thermal imaging are time consuming, expensive and rely heavily on human interpretation. Furthermore, they cannot be applied to inaccessible areas and in some cases may require structures to be disassembled entirely. Quite often, the inspection equipment is available only at specialised facilities, thus requiring structures to be removed from service and sent to these facilities for inspection thereby further increasing operating cost [1–3] .

National Disaster Medical System

Robert F. Knouss, MDa This discussion focuses on the functions of the Office of Emergency Prepared ness (OEP) within the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), particularly as they relate to responses to any release of a weapon of mass destruction (WMD). It is important to be aware that an infrastructure is avail able to address consequences that will be created for the health care delivery system. Our office, OEP, is responsible for responses to a variety of disasters that could overwhelm local and state health systems with casualties. Examples in clude natural disasters, transportation disasters, technological disasters, and disasters that may be caused by the use of WMDs by terrorists. A fact that may be surprising to you is that our office, under agreement with the National Transpor tation Safety Board, also provides the teams for victim identification when we have transportation disasters such as commercial airline crashes. In addition, the OEP provides health care teams in response to a terrorist attack, which could overwhelm local health care systems. We may be called on to respond to techno logical disasters, if they would cause significant shortfalls in health care capacity. The Federal Response Plan has made the federal response to disasters very understandable. Essentially, it states that during any presidentially declared disaster in the United States, 12 essential functions might have to be performed to be able to have an effective response in support of state and local govern ments, ranging from mass care to transportation, urban search and rescue, environmental health services, and health and medical services. The health and medical services function is called Emergency Support Func tion #8 (ESF-8), for which DHHS has the lead but is supported by 12 other departments. These departments work with us in providing resources to assist in meeting the challenges that would be faced by our health care system in the event of a significant disaster creating mass casualties. ESF-8 provides four principal types of services: preventive health services, environmental health services, medical services, and mental health services. Two of these services are resource intense: medical services, which might have to be provided to mass casualty victims, and mental health services. These two potentially resource intense responses are largely accommodated through the National Disaster Medical System (NDMS), which has been in existence for more than 15 years.

International Trauma Anesthesia and Critical Care Society (ITACCS).

International Trauma Anesthesia and Critical Care Society (ITACCS).

Some Hours Ago

This original healing narrative gives as harrowing and direct an access to the experience of a commercial airline crash as language can provide. It is raw and unrelenting.

Severe Stress and Mental Disturbance in Children

Prologue. Neurodevelopmental and Neurobiological Models of Stress in Human and Nonhuman Subjects. Effect of reactivity and social competence on individual responses to severe stress in children: investigations using nonhuman primates. Neurophysiological mechanisms of stress response in children. Early environment and the development of individual differences in the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal stress response. Sudden Unexpected Trauma. Coping with natural disasters. The avianca airline crash: implications for community health care response. Exposure to catastrophic violence and disaster in childhood. Relationship Between Medical Illness and Stress. Emotional stressors and the onset of asthma. Stress, depression, mood, and immunity. Stress and pediatric medical technology. The severe stress of childhood cancer: a systems perspective. Coping with chronic medical illness: lessons from children and adolescents with diabetes mellitus. Suicide as Stressor and as Mediator of Stress. Suicidal behavior as a response to stress. A test of the diathesis-stress model of adolescent depression in friends and acquaintances of adolescent suicide victims. Siblings of youth suicide victims. Abuse and its traumatic impact. Physical and sexual abuse and mental disturbances in children. Multiple personality disorder: a legacy of trauma. Abuse and the development of dissociative symptoms and dissociative identity disorder. A developmental-interaction model of child abuse. Effects of Extreme Stress Factors on Developmental Processes. Traumatic stress in infancy and early childhood: expression of distress and developmental issues. Adoption: its benefits and problems. Family transitions as stressors in children and adolescents. Bereavement as a significant stressor in children. Epilogue: implications for clinical practice and research. Index.

Alex E. Krill: A brief biography of his life and final days

At the time of his death in 1972 at 44 years, Alex E. Krill had an established reputation as an authority on the topic of inherited retinal and choroidal dystrophies. He lived to see the publication of the first volume of his two volume textbook on Hereditary Retinal and Choroidal Diseases but perished in an airline crash before the completion of the second volume of this text. Although Dr. Krill had completed a substantial portion of the material for this second volume, the publication of a second volume would unlikely have resulted without major additional efforts from two of his colleagues Drs. Desmond Archer, Belfast, Northern Ireland, and August Deutman, Nijmegen, the Netherlands. This work is a testimonial to the scope of Alex Krill's knowledge of various retinal disorders and their proper investigation and classification by electrophysiologic and psychophysical procedures. It is also a lasting tribute to his memory by two generous and devoted colleagues.

Experience with the cytological demonstration of smoker cells in the identification of disaster victims illustrated by the findings concerning the Lauda-Air airliner crash near Bangkok

On 26 May 1991, a Lauda-Air airliner crashed after take-off at Bangkok from an initial height of ∼ 8000 m. The plane came down in inaccessible jungle terrain, so that the difficulties of locating and salvaging the victims were considerably increased by the tropical conditions and the looting that had occurred. Identification of the victims took place in extremely adverse working conditions in the pathological department of the Police Hospital in Bangkok. The technique developed by the first author for the identification of persons in the light of their smoking habits by determining the existence of the so-called smoker cells was used to subdivide the entire autopsy material into ‘smokers’, ‘non-smokers’ and ‘incidental or passive smokers’. This allows the division of mass disaster victims into smaller specific groups and the application of further identification procedures within these groups in a shorter time. The findings of the cytological examination carried out locally were compared with the police investigations regarding the individual victim's smoking habits, and the method, quick and simple to use even in ‘field conditions’, proved highly efficaceous.

FORENSIC AND LEGAL ISSUES IN ORAL DIAGNOSIS

The forensic odontologist has assumed a more visible role in the last decade, having been called upon repeatedly to assist both law enforcement agencies and the judicial system. It has become quite common for dentists to establish the identity of unknown bodies; to quickly and positively identify the victims of mass disasters such as airliner crashes, floods, and earthquakes; as well as to provide testimony in court concerning bite marks or other matters that require dental expertise. Litigation directed at dental defendants for failure to diagnose, properly treat, or obtain valid consent from plaintiff patients is also on the rise. In each of these fields, dentists who have been specially trained in or who have devoted their practices to the dental diagnostic sciences have been looked to widely as experts. This article discusses in detail these areas and others that affect the dental diagnostician.

Terrorism and security in the Caribbean: The 1976 Cubana disaster off Barbados

Abstract This study is an attempt to examine the Cubana airline crash in the light of political terrorism in the Caribbean. With respect to the selected case, the research endeavor will analyze the activities of the terrorists. In so doing, the writer will determine the category within which the Cubana airline disaster falls within Mickolus’ typology.1 In addition, the motivation of the terrorists as well as limited aspects of some of the legal issues that arose with regard to the Cubana crash are discussed. Finally, there is some attempt to determine the effects of the Cubana disaster on the Caribbean and on Barbados in particular.

Lessons to be learned from the major disaster following the civil airliner crash at Kegworth in January 1989

On the evening of Sunday, 8 January 1989, a Boeing 737 with 126 passengers and crew on board took off from London en route for Belfast but experienced engine trouble which required its diversion to the East Midlands airport for an emergency landing. East Midlands control tower informed Leicester Police of this potential hazard and Leicester Police informed the Leicester Ambulance Service at 8.12 pm. At 8.26 pm that evening the airliner crashed on the Ml motorway just south of junction 24, just outside the village of Kegworth. This site was on the approach run to East Midlands airport. Three counties border the crash site, Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire and Leicestershire, and there are three hospitals within 20 miles of the crash site, each of which despatched a flying squad team to the crash site from whence each received patients. On impact the aircraft fragmented into three main sections; the tail, the central fuselage and the cockpit. These sections were impacted on to the motorway embankment which dispatched a flying squad team to the crash site from Aviation fuel had spilled and leaked over the site. Foam had been sprayed on to the area by the airport fire services, ropes and ladders were erected to afford access to the aircraft and mountain rescue teams dug steps in the embankment. The three flying squads (with their doctors and nurses) distributed themselves one to each of the three main segments of the aircraft. The control vehicle (for centralization of communications) arrived on the scene very quickly but had mechanical failure. Attempts were made to create a triage area on the adjacent motorway but initially patients were not triaged, the first 30 patients arriving at Queen’s Medical Centre, Nottingham, in 30 min. The triage centre had only a transient existence. Evacuation of patients was by ambulances from the services of each of the three counties. Before the end of clearance of patients, three Royal Air Force helicopters assisted in transporting the last six patients to Leicester Royal Infirmary.

THE ADJUSTMENT OF STOCK PRICES TO COMPLETELY UNANTICIPATED EVENTS

ABSTRACTThis paper utilizes standard cumulative residual analysis to study the response of stock prices to completely unanticipated events—fatal commercial airline crashes. Results indicate that the immediate negative reaction to fatal airline crashes is significant for only one full trading day after the event occurs. Hence, the market appears to assimilate the new information rapidly, even if the crash occurs in a remote geographic location. The paper also considers market response after the initial reaction period by assuming that the actual cumulative average residuals are drawn from the same distribution as the pre‐crash base period and by calculating the probabilities that observed changes would occur. Results provide no evidence that underreaction or overreaction appeared in the initial response period. The hypothesis of complete, immediate adjustment is also supported by a repetition of the analysis on the subsample of airplane crashes where the greatest potential loss occurs.