Interesting in that "of course it matters how particular individuals in particular situations grew up" kind of way. The soft bigotry of multiculturalism is really great, right up until you need a particular historical and cultural background to be good at something:

Does culture play a role in aviation safety? Interesting question, particularly as American domestic airlines at the end of this week will--barring a last-minute disaster--achieve a 65-percent improvement in their safety record over the last ten years while foreign carriers better their safety records at a substantially slower rate... The opposite of Qantas cockpit socialization would be those products of strict and authoritarian societies, the Japanese and the Koreans. And yes, there have been several horrific crashes on Japanese and Korean carriers where it was made apparent that a copilot would literally rather die than wrest control from his captain... it's impossible not to be aware of the fact that some pilots for African airlines had never seen a piece of machinery in their lives before presenting themselves for flight training.

Though the article doesn't mention it, we imagine that there's such a thing as too much dissension and independent thinking in a cockpit. Now that we think about it, we're baffled at how El Al ever manages to land planes at all.

References:
* Does It Matter Where the Captain Grew Up? You Bet from 'The Perrin Post' by Conde Nast Traveler magazine. [Perrin Post]

Previously:
* Israeli Ambassador Displeased With Disgusting Celebration of Baby Killing, Expresses Displeasure Reasonably
* Hey Gals, Check This Out - Joyful Israeli Girls A Stark Contrast To Girls In Arab And Muslim World
* Yes, the Pope Is Catholic - Either You Believe 'The Pope Made Them Attack Churches' Or You Know History