Blame and Ignorance

I made a fool of myself yesterday

I had a road rage incident.  Well it wasn’t so much road rage as pedestrian rage.

I was crossing the street on my way to the railway station and some clown in 4 by 4 damn near ran me over.  It ended up in a slagging match between me and Mr White Range Rover.  Lord alone knows what I was thinking.  It isn’t dignified for a man of my age to use his best comprehensive school vocabulary. Particularly not in front of a stranger.

It didn’t get us anywhere, and I missed the train because of it.

But he was driving and I was walking.  Clearly he was to blame.

Why do we blame?

We all know that the blame game is a futile thing to get involved in, yet we all do it.  It is part of our psyche to find somebody else to point the finger at.

The evolutionary biologists have a theory why blame is so ingrained.  In prehistoric times, blame and praise were vital to our survival.  It was in our interests to cooperate and blame has a social benefit.  It conditions people to behave according to the rules of society.  Just the fear of blame is enough to get us to comply.  Blame, praise and social bonding are all important if you are staring down a sabre toothed tiger.

But what served us then is not so useful in our modern world.

Life is complicated.  Let me give you an example:

Flight 114

On 21st February 1973 a Libyan Arab Airlines Boeing 727 set off from Tripoli on a scheduled flight to Cairo. There were one hundred and thirteen people on board.

Lost

It was a miserable day with strong westerly winds and vicious sand storms.  Visibility was poor and the radio navigation system was playing up.  The pilots were lost and confused.  They had drifted some 80 miles off course to the east of Cairo towards the Suez canal.

This was not a good place to be.  In the early 1970’s Israel and Egypt were at war.  Thousands of people had been killed by both sides.  Tempers were fraught and the Libyan jet had flown straight into the middle of a war zone.

Worse than that, Israeli military intelligence had heard about a suicide attack.  Palestinian commandos were planning to hijack an airliner and crash it into a large Israeli target.

Air traffic control in Cairo had not realised how far off course the plane was.  As far as they knew it was still heading toward Cairo.  They gave it permission to descend and land.

Interception

By this time the plane was over the Sinai desert.  It was a large dot on the Israeli military radar.  The Israeli’s were very suspicious.  If it was a legitimate commercial flight, Egyptian fighter planes should have shepherded it home.  They scrambled two Phantom jets to intercept it.

The air traffic controller finally realised where the Boeing was.  He advised the Captain that he was “deserting airways”.  Confusion overcame the cockpit.  The chief Pilot was French, his co-pilot was Libyan and communication was poor.  When the Israeli jets arrived the Boeing pilot assumed they were Egyptian MIGs.  They were there to guide him back to Cairo.

Confusion reigns

The Israeli fighter pilot tried to make radio contact but was unsuccessful.  He resorted to sign language, making eye contact with the Boeing’s Captain and indicating that he should land.  He even fired tracer ammunition in front of the plane as a warning.    The Boeing’s captain acknowledged him and followed him down toward an Israeli Aerodrome.  He still believed he was being guided to an Egyptian airport.  Only when they saw the military aerodrome buildings did the crew realise their mistake.  On impulse they retracted their undercarriage and started to climb.  Then they headed west, back towards Cairo.

The attack

This action confirmed to the Israelis what they had suspected.  The Boeing was going to attack them.  In a final attempt to force the plane to land they fired at the wingtips.  Unfortunately the Israeli’s shots damaged the Boeing’s controls.  The pilot attempted an emergency landing  in an area covered with sand dunes.   The aircraft  crashed.  108 of the 113 people onboard died.

The finger of blame

There was political and diplomatic uproar after the incident.  First the Israeli’s denied it.  Then investigators found the black box flight recorder and the tragic affair came to light.

The Egyptians claimed that

… the Israeli act of shooting down a civilian aircraft to be another aggression carried out by Israel to new heights, as well as a crime committed in cold blood against a civil air transport vehicle and as such, it is a flagrant and serious threat to the safety of international aviation…

The Israelis argued that

…given the tense security situation and the erratic behavior of the Libyan jet’s crew, the actions that the Israeli government took were proper and consistent with Israel’s right to self-defense…

There was heated debate in the United Nations.  Thirty members of the International Civil Aviation Organisation voted to censure Israel.

The Israeli government ultimately apologised for the act and paid compensation to the families of the dead.

But who was really to blame?

General Dayan, Israel’s Minister of Defence, discreetly admitted that he believed the tragedy was the result of three errors:

1. The French captain, who thought he was still over Egypt
2. The traffic controllers in Cairo, who believed him
3. The Israeli Air Force, who thought that the plane was on a terrorist mission against Israel

Things are rarely clear-cut

There are always nuances, complications, misunderstandings and mistakes.  But in the heat of the moment the act of blame only has to outcomes:

• First it removes our need and desire to understand
• Second it takes away others willingness to explain

All blame creates is ignorance

Unless of course you drive a white Range Rover in Nottingham.  In which case you are clearly ignorant to start with.

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Image by Uditha Umesh