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As a former regional jet pilot, I turned straight to the section on aviation safety. Gladwell compares the superior safety record of U.S. major airlines with some foreign carriers and concludes that the explanation can be found in the culture and ethnicity of the pilots. He ignores the more obvious explanation that U.S. major airlines are piloted by much more experienced crews. You can't be the copilot on Continental, for example, unless you've first been the copilot and then captain on Continental Express. Foreign countries typically don't have the infrastructure of flight schools, private pilots, and regional airlines that we have here, so their "major airlines" will hire 23-year-olds fresh out of flight school. The 24-year-old kid in the U.S. would be helping a private student learn how to handle a 4-seat Cessna. The 24-year-old kid in Hamburg, Germany in March 2008 nearly wrecked a Lufthansa Airbus A320 with 131 passengers in the back by attempting a landing in a 50-knot crosswind. Would an American have done better? Gladwell suggests so, but really there is no way to tell because no U.S. major airline would let a 24-year-old anywhere near the controls of an Airbus. It would be nice if the publisher had submitted this chapter to a couple of pilots for review...