Inattention Blindness
In December 1972, Eastern Airlines flight 401 is heading to Florida full of New Yorkers looking forward to a Christmas break in the sun. One hundred and sixty three passengers are on board and the mood is seasonal.
The flight is smooth and without incident and just before midnight the plane adjusts its position for the final approach. The captain comes over the intercom to tell passengers about the local temperature and thanking them for choosing Eastern.
But then the co-pilot notices something. The landing light has failed to come on. He quickly tells the pilot who decides to abort the landing. Two things could have happened. Either the light is faulty or the landing gear has failed to deploy.
What happens next causes one of the biggest civil aviation disasters in history.
The three-crew members get to work on the problem. They take out the bulb, blow on it to remove any dust. They try to reset the bulb but it gets stuck. They fiddle and faff and generally pull and push the bulb to refit it on the massive instrument panel.
In the process of doing this they miss something far more important. The autopilot has been accidentally disengaged. The plane is losing altitude at an alarming rate. Even as the altitude warning alarm beeps in the background the cockpit crew remain focused on solving the bulb issue.
Their attention is so wrapped up with the light that nothing else gets through.
20 seconds later eventually the pilot realizes that something else is wrong and vainly tries to pull back on the lever, too late. The plane crashes with many lives lost, for what was later discovered to be a faulty $12 bulb.
A key learning from the tragedy was the new focus on crew training. There became a clear process of delineation between tasks when problems occur. This allows the pilot to fly the plane whilst others focus on reso