Blind Trust(William Morrow, 2000)
The glib promises of low fares trumpeted by naive and overeager deregulators in the late 1970’s created a dangerous mix of entrepreneurial airlines run by people who understood little to nothing about airline safety Driven by profitability as their holy grail, such money men built amateurish flight operations in too many “low cost airlines,” which, in turn, pressed established and safe airlines to lower their standards and their costs. That deadly mix combined with an overwhelmed Federal Aviation Administration to create a safety crisis in the United States in which airline leaders were willing to accept a certain numbers of airline deaths per year rather than drive the accident rate to zero. Only the revolutionary understanding that inadvertent human error was causing over 90 percent of airline accidents – and the inspired development of new training (Crew Resource Management) forcing pilots to fly as a mutually respectful and communicating team – kept the deregulatory damage from taking thousands more lives. BLIND TRUST is the story behind the amazing achievements of airline safety and getting to Zero – the story most people have never heard of, and the accidents that changed the world. Written to read like a high-speed thriller novel (but taking no liberties with the facts), this was also one of the seminal works that helped spark a revolution in healthcare.