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Speaker 1: Pushkin. There are sixty three passengers on board flight five

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Speaker 1: nine three, some drinking beer, some are asleep, others are board.

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Speaker 1: There are no smartphones to play with because this is

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Speaker 1: nineteen ninety four. They left Moscow four time zones ago.

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Speaker 1: Hong Kong is still several hours away. The flight is long,

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Speaker 1: time goes slowly. It's dark outside, and even if it wasn't,

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Speaker 1: there wouldn't be much to look at. The airbus A

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Speaker 1: three ten is inching its way over the vast expanse

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Speaker 1: of sudden Siberia, grasslands and forests and hills. To the

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Speaker 1: south lies Kazakhstan, ahead Mongolia. The weather is calm, visibility

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Speaker 1: is good. The plane is an autopilot and the captain

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Speaker 1: has gone back to the cabin for a snooze. An

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Speaker 1: off duty pilot, Vladimir Makarov is traveling as a passenger.

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Speaker 1: He's ambled to the cockpit to pass the time with

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Speaker 1: his Aeroflot colleagues, relief Captain Yaroslav Kadrinsky and First Officer

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Speaker 1: Igor Piskadev, and he's brought guests Kadrinsky's two teenage children.

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Speaker 1: In this pre nine eleven era, attitudes to cockpit security

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Speaker 1: were more relaxed. The kids have got free flights a

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Speaker 1: perk of their dad's job, and he's taking them to

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Speaker 1: see Hong Kong. It's their first international journey. Kadrinsky, Piskadev,

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Speaker 1: and Makarov shoot the breeze for a while. Then Kadrinsky

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Speaker 1: turns to his daughter, Come and sit here now in

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Speaker 1: my seat. Would you like that? Thirteen year old Yarner

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Speaker 1: takes his place at the country rolls alongside copilot Piskadev. Dad,

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Speaker 1: raise me up. Kadrinsky adjusts the seat so Yanna can

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Speaker 1: see better. How high are we flying here? Look? Ten thousand,

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Speaker 1: one hundreds. It's a lot, isn't it. It's a lot.

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Speaker 1: It's a cloudless night. Far above, the stars are shining.

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Speaker 1: Down below, the land is covered in snow. Hey, Yanna,

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Speaker 1: you're going to fly the aeroplane a bit. Go ahead,

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Speaker 1: take the controls. You don't think he's actually going to

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Speaker 1: let Yanna fly the plane, do you remember the autopilots

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Speaker 1: is switched on. Kadrinsky is only going to give Yanna

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Speaker 1: the illusion of being in control. He adjusts the autopilot

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Speaker 1: so the plane will bank first to the left, then

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Speaker 1: back to the right, while he tells Yanna to turn

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Speaker 1: the control wheel to the left, then to the right.

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Speaker 1: She'll think the planes responding to her touch, but the

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Speaker 1: autopilot will be keeping them safe the whole time. The wheel.

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Speaker 1: But don't push the buttons. He just needs to make

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Speaker 1: sure that it doesn't accidentally get switched off. This button,

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Speaker 1: the red one, don't touch it. I'm Tim Harford and

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Speaker 1: you're listening to cautionary tales. Forty three drivers are lined

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Speaker 1: up for the Daytona five hundred, the most keenly anticipated

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Speaker 1: race in the NASCAR calendar. This time, however, that anticipation

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Speaker 1: was mixed with a sense of unease. In the previous

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Speaker 1: nine months, three drivers had lost their lives in accidents.

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Speaker 1: Two thousand and one had been the eddliest season in decades.

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Speaker 1: All three had been killed by the same injury, a

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Speaker 1: basilla skull fracture. Think about what happens when a car

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Speaker 1: hits a war The car stops suddenly. The car's driver

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Speaker 1: would keep moving forward if they weren't strapped into their seat.

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Speaker 1: A basilla's skull fracture can happen when the driver's body

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Speaker 1: is restrained but their head is not. If the head

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Speaker 1: shoots forward with enough force and at the wrong angle.

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Speaker 1: There's a risk of cracking the bones that connect the

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Speaker 1: skull the neck, so why not strap the driver's head

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Speaker 1: into racing Driver Jim Downing asked himself that question when

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Speaker 1: a fellow racer was killed by a basilar skull fracture

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Speaker 1: back in nineteen eighty one. Downing and his brother in

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Speaker 1: law spent years perfecting a head and neck support device

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Speaker 1: h A n S or HANS. When at long last

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Speaker 1: they put it on the market, hardly anyone wanted to

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Speaker 1: buy it. I ain't wearing that damn noose, said Dale

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Speaker 1: Earnhart's senior, nickname the Intimidator, Earnhart was larger than life.

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Speaker 1: A seven time champion, his opinion was widely shared. When

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Speaker 1: another NASCAR driver started to wear a hands device, he

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Speaker 1: was called Sissy Pansy candy ass. After those three deaths

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Speaker 1: in quick succession, attitudes started to soften, but not by much.

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Speaker 1: Of the forty three drivers who lined up for the

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Speaker 1: Daytona five hundred in two thousand and one, only five

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Speaker 1: were wearing a head and neck support device. Dale Earnhart's

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Speaker 1: senior was not among them. If the drivers in soussions

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Speaker 1: seems puzzling, you have to remember that most acts weren't fatal.

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Speaker 1: With twenty five laps to go in this Daytona five hundred,

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Speaker 1: there came an example a huge crash a twenty car pilot.

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Speaker 1: One car flipped through the air and landed upside down

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Speaker 1: on the top of another. It looked horrendous, but the

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Speaker 1: driver got out and walked away they usually did. When

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Speaker 1: the track was cleared of debris and the race resumed,

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Speaker 1: one of Dale Earnhart's teammates took the lead. His son,

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Speaker 1: Dale Earnhardt Junior, was running second. Ernhart himself was in third,

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Speaker 1: driving defensively, determined to stop anyone else from getting past.

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Speaker 1: On the fourth and final turn of the very last lap,

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Speaker 1: the back of Earnhardt's car clipped the front of the

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Speaker 1: car on his inside. Ernhart tried to keep control but couldn't.

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Speaker 1: His car veered to the right diag ely up the

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Speaker 1: bank turn. It took out a rival's car, and the

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Speaker 1: team slid into the wall at the top of the bank.

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Speaker 1: At first glance, the crash didn't look as bad as

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Speaker 1: the earlier one. The television commentators didn't sound alarm. They

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Speaker 1: noted the incident, then went back to describing the battle

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Speaker 1: for the win. Coming down of the Finnish, though it

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Speaker 1: is Michael walfop pry to hold off Dale Orhart Jr.

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Speaker 1: Earnhardt's car and that of his rival Ken Schrader slipped

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Speaker 1: down the banking and came to rest on the grassy Impiel.

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Speaker 1: Schrader got out and walked stiffly round to check that

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Speaker 1: Earnhardt was okay. He took one look into Earnhart's car,

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Speaker 1: then turned and gestured urgently to the medical crew, who

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Speaker 1: were just arriving. But there was nothing they could do.

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Speaker 1: Dale Earnhart had been killed by a Basla skull fracture.

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Speaker 1: The inventor Jim Downing, who had struggled for years to

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Speaker 1: interest anyone in his hands, device suddenly found, but his

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Speaker 1: telephone didn't stop ringing. On Aeroflot flight five nine three,

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Speaker 1: thirteen year old Yarner has done what her father told her.

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Speaker 1: She's avoided the temptation to press the red button. While

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Speaker 1: Captain Kadrinsky has been coaching his daughter to turn the

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Speaker 1: plane left then right, the autopilot has actually been flying

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Speaker 1: the plane. Now it's the turn of Yanna's older brother,

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Speaker 1: fifteen year old Eldar gets into his dad's seat. We

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Speaker 1: might wonder how Kudrinsky's two colleagues are feeling about his

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Speaker 1: impromptu bring your kids to work day. Is the copilot

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Speaker 1: Igor Piskadev at all anxious. If so, we might expect

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Speaker 1: him to be hunched over his own set of controls,

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Speaker 1: ready to take charge at a moment's notice. But no,

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Speaker 1: it seems not. He's pushed his seat right back, almost

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Speaker 1: as far as it can go. Kodrinsky goes through the

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Speaker 1: same routine as he did with Yanna. He adjusts the autopilot,

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Speaker 1: then gives Eldar instructions to give him the illusion that

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Speaker 1: he's in control. Eldar turns the control wheel. It seems

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Speaker 1: to him that the plane turns in response. Is the

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Speaker 1: plane turning that's great. From the back of the cockpit,

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Speaker 1: Yanna says something. Kodrinsky turns to answer. It's hard to

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Speaker 1: make out what they're talking about. Something about going to

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Speaker 1: sleep in the first class cabin. Eldar is at the controls.

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Speaker 1: First officer. Piskadev doesn't seem to be paying close attention,

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Speaker 1: because it's the fifteen year old who's the first to

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Speaker 1: notice that something isn't right. Dad, I don't understand why

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Speaker 1: is it turning. It's turning by itself. Yes, it's tempting

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Speaker 1: to question the judgment of Dale Earnhardt Senior for his

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Speaker 1: casual dismissal the safety device that could have saved his life.

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Speaker 1: But perhaps we should equally question ninety eight percent of

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Speaker 1: people who bought a new Ford in nineteen fifty six.

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Speaker 1: Back then, cars didn't come with seat belts as standard.

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Speaker 1: Ford offered the option for a modest fee. Admittedly, these

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Speaker 1: were simple seat belts that fastened only across your lab

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Speaker 1: In an accident, you might still lurch forward and bash

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Speaker 1: into the steering wheel or dashboard, but the belts were

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Speaker 1: better than nothing, and Ford's modestly priced safety upgrade also

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Speaker 1: included a padded dash Still, only two percent of buyers

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Speaker 1: were willing to pay for the upgrade. Soon after, an

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Speaker 1: engineer at Volvo invented the modern three point seatbelt, with

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Speaker 1: a second strap passing diagonally across the shoulder. Evidence mounted

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Speaker 1: that these seatbelts dramatically improved your chance of surviving a crash.

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Speaker 1: In nineteen sixty six, the US government required all new

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Speaker 1: cars to have seatbelts, and some other safety futures too,

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Speaker 1: such as toughened windscreens and shock absorbing steering columns. A

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Speaker 1: few years after that, an economist at the University of

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Speaker 1: Chicago wondered how many lives these new regulations had saved.

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Speaker 1: Sam Peltsman looked at the numbers and published his answer

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Speaker 1: in a paper called the Effects of Automobile Safety Regulation,

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Speaker 1: and that answer was surprising. The regulations concluded Peltzman had

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Speaker 1: saved no lives at all. Was the evidence on seat

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Speaker 1: belts wrong. No, if you had a crash, they really

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Speaker 1: would make you much less likely to die, But said Peltsman,

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Speaker 1: you couldn't look only at how likely people were to

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Speaker 1: die if they had an accident. You also had to

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Speaker 1: look at how likely they were to have accidents. Drivers

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Speaker 1: who feel safer because they're strapped into padded shock absorbing

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Speaker 1: cars might drive more recklessly. Peltsman found that drivers were

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Speaker 1: surviving more accidents, but also having more accidents. The two

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Speaker 1: effects more or less canceled each other out, particularly once

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Speaker 1: you realize that some of the victims of these extra

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Speaker 1: accidents weren't protected by seat belts. We call these people pedestrians.

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Speaker 1: The idea that people might take more risks when they

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Speaker 1: feel more protected became known as risk compensation theory or

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Speaker 1: the pelt effect. It was immediately controversial. The politically charged

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Speaker 1: implication was that government regulations might be self undermining, and

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Speaker 1: there was another reason for the controversy. Peltzman's research methods

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Speaker 1: were primitive, as he later admitted. He added that if

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Speaker 1: an undergraduate today gave him that work, he'd tell them

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Speaker 1: to redo it. Some other researchers looked at the same

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Speaker 1: road safety data and said there was no effect. Still,

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Speaker 1: others charted a middle ground. They thought risk compensation did happen,

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Speaker 1: that it only partially canceled out the good of the

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Speaker 1: safety features. It was hard to get a definitive answer

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Speaker 1: because the world is messy. You can't just compare data

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Speaker 1: on traffic accidents before and after a change in regulations.

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Speaker 1: Lots of other things might also be changing in that time.

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Speaker 1: What kind of cars people buy, what journeys they make,

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Speaker 1: how roads are maintained, how laws are in force, how

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Speaker 1: statistical bureaus count accidents, and so on. How do you

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Speaker 1: adjust for all these things? Reasonable people can differ. Then

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Speaker 1: some researchers realized that there's a way to cut through

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Speaker 1: the mess. It's a natural experiment on car safety regulations.

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Speaker 1: That's as close to perfect as you can get NASCAR.

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Speaker 1: The cars are all very similar, the drivers have comparable skills,

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Speaker 1: they drive around the same circuits year after year, and

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Speaker 1: because it's such a popular sport, there's comprehensive data on accidents.

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Speaker 1: Any differences in that data are quite likely to be

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Speaker 1: down to changes in the safety regulations. Dale Earnhart's accident

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Speaker 1: led to a big change. In the week that followed

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Speaker 1: Earnhardt's death, Jim Downing sold more hands devices than he

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Speaker 1: had in all of the previous ten years, with in

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Speaker 1: months NASCAR had mandated that all drivers must wear them.

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Speaker 1: Two researchers looked at data on NASCAR crashes before and

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Speaker 1: after this big rule change. Earnhardt's fatal crash, remember, had

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Speaker 1: been the fourth in less than a year. In the

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Speaker 1: seasons after the hands device became compulsory, no one died,

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Speaker 1: but there were more accidents. The drivers were feeling more

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Speaker 1: protected and taking more risks. Other researchers have looked at

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Speaker 1: other NASCAR regulation changes over the years and tried to

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Speaker 1: put a number on the size of the Peltzman effect.

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Speaker 1: Various studies estimate that whenever you improve the safety of

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Speaker 1: the cars, you'll lose about twenty to forty percent of

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Speaker 1: the benefits because the drivers will respond by pushing the envelope,

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Speaker 1: So risk compensation looks like a real effect, but a

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Speaker 1: partial one. In this case, at least, it isn't pointless

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Speaker 1: to mandate the use of safety devices. Yes, they might

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Speaker 1: tempt us to be a bit more reckless, but on

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Speaker 1: the whole they can still save lives. Indulge me for

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Speaker 1: a moment to consider another car safety device, the speed limitter.

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Speaker 1: You set a maximum speed, say forty miles an hour.

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Speaker 1: You drive as you normally would, slowing down in traffic

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Speaker 1: and speeding up when the road is clear. But once

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Speaker 1: you reach forty the car will no longer accelerate further

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Speaker 1: as your foot stays on the gas. That means you

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Speaker 1: can't absentmindedly go too fast and get a speeding ticket.

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Speaker 1: It's a useful device, but it's also one you want

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Speaker 1: to be able to override in a hurry. There are

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Speaker 1: emergency situations where you need to accelerate and you don't

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Speaker 1: have time to think about which lever turns off the

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Speaker 1: speed limitter. Instinctively, you just slam your foot to the floor,

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Speaker 1: so the system is designed to account for that possibility.

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Speaker 1: Apply gentle pressure on the accelerator pedal and it ignores

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Speaker 1: your input. Sudden hard pressure and it turns itself off.

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Speaker 1: Back in the cockpit of Aeroflot Flight five nine, three,

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Speaker 1: thirteen year old Yarner had been gentle at the control wheel.

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Speaker 1: The autopilot had stayed in charge, just as Captain Kudrinsky

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Speaker 1: had intended. Fifteen year old elder Though has more gung ho.

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Speaker 1: He applied more force, so much force that the plane's

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Speaker 1: autopilot did what a car's speed limiter does when the

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Speaker 1: driver slams the pedal to the metal. The autopilot turned

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Speaker 1: itself off, at least in part, the part that controls

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Speaker 1: the ailerons, the section of the wings that roll the

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Speaker 1: plane one way or the other. Somewhere in the cockpit,

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Speaker 1: a light came on, the autopilot, silently confirming that it

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Speaker 1: had partially disengaged itself. Captain Kodrinsky didn't notice the light

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Speaker 1: coming on. He was distracted talking to Yarna. Copilot Piskadev

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Speaker 1: didn't notice the light. Off duty pilot Makarov didn't notice Eldar.

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Speaker 1: Eldar was fifteen. How could he possibly have known what

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Speaker 1: the light meant, Dad, I don't understand why is it turning.

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Speaker 1: It's turning by itself. Yes, I don't know why it's turning.

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Speaker 1: The three pilots all believed that the autopilot was still

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Speaker 1: fully in charge of the plane, so the mystery they

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Speaker 1: thought they had to solve was why the autopilot had

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Speaker 1: put them into a sharp turn. It looked very much

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Speaker 1: like the start of a holding pattern when you're waiting

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Speaker 1: above an airport for a slopped land The pilots assumed

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Speaker 1: the autopilot must somehow have glitched that it hadn't. Eldar

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Speaker 1: was still holding his control wheel slightly off center, and

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Speaker 1: that meant the plane was continuing to bank further and

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Speaker 1: further to the right. It passed a tipping point. The

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Speaker 1: plane banked so far that it couldn't maintain forward momentum.

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Speaker 1: It started to fall out of the scar. The sudden

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Speaker 1: g forces slammed everybody backwards. Kadrinsky and Makarov were pinned

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Speaker 1: to the back of the cockpit. Eldar was trapped where

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Speaker 1: he sat in the pilot's seat. Piscardev was pressed back

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Speaker 1: into his co pilot's chair, which he had previously pushed

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Speaker 1: back as far as it would go. He stretched forward,

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Speaker 1: desperately reaching for the controls, but the first office of

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Speaker 1: Piscadov was only five feet two inches tor He could

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Speaker 1: barely get a hand on them. Only one person in

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Speaker 1: the cockpit was sitting in a place where he could

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Speaker 1: easily reach the controls. That person was elder. Cautionary tales

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Speaker 1: will return in a moment. Perhaps there's another reason Sam

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Speaker 1: Peltzmann's risk compensation theory has been so controversial. We feel

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Speaker 1: uncomfortable about what it says about us. Do we really

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Speaker 1: start to drive more recklessly when we buy a safer car.

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Speaker 1: We'd like to think that we drive equally responsibly all

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Speaker 1: the time, but we don't. The idea that we take

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Speaker 1: more risks when we feel protected. It's just another way

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Speaker 1: of saying that we behave more cautiously when we feel vulnerable,

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Speaker 1: and that's obviously true. The economist Gordon Tullock came up

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Speaker 1: with a famous thought experiment to prove the point. Imagine.

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Speaker 1: Tullock said that instead of mandating seatbelts, the government instead

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Speaker 1: said that every steering wheel must have a sharp metal

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Speaker 1: spike sticking out of it, pointing straight at the driver's chest,

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Speaker 1: you'd drive far more cautiously. Of course, remove the spike

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Speaker 1: and yourd return to driving normally, which is to say,

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Speaker 1: more recklessly. In comparison, researchers have found suggestions of the

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Speaker 1: Peltzman effect in all kinds of places, almost all of

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Speaker 1: them fiercely controversial. One unexpected example concerns prophylactic drugs that

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Speaker 1: protect you against catching HIV. Some researchers have found that

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Speaker 1: when people start to take these drugs, they have more

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Speaker 1: risky sex. Other studies say there's no effect. Or consider

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Speaker 1: the COVID pandemic. When mask mandates came in, some worried

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Speaker 1: that people would compensate by getting two LAS on social distancing.

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Speaker 1: Researchers have looked into that question again, with varying results.

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Speaker 1: Sometimes we're well aware that we're choosing to live more

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Speaker 1: dangerously because we feel more protected. Think of COVID vaccines.

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Speaker 1: I know I took more social risks once I was

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Speaker 1: fully dosed, but that's only because I've been cautious before.

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Speaker 1: When seeing friends felt like driving with Tullock's spike. It's

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Speaker 1: easy to get moralistic about the Peltsman effect, framing it

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Speaker 1: in terms of recklessness. Laziness or selfishness. But some safety

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Speaker 1: measures work so well that we don't even realize we're

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Speaker 1: relying on them to protect us. In his book Factfulness,

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Speaker 1: Hans Rusling recounts the tale of Swedish medical students visiting

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Speaker 1: a hospital in India. One student was running late as

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Speaker 1: she dashed across the lobby to try to join her

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Speaker 1: colleagues in the elevator. Another student did something I've done

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Speaker 1: before and perhaps you have two. She stuck out her

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Speaker 1: foot to stop the elevator doors from closing. But the

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Speaker 1: elevator doors didn't stop closing. They kept on pressing together,

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Speaker 1: painfully trapping her leg. Then the elevator began to move upwards.

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Speaker 1: The student's leg was about to be crushed on top

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Speaker 1: of the doorway when their Indian host lunged for the

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Speaker 1: emergency stop button. He was astonished by the student's stupidity.

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Speaker 1: She had just stuck a limb into a moving machine.

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Speaker 1: She was astonished to discover that elevator doors in India

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Speaker 1: didn't all behave like the ones in Sweden. Every time

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Speaker 1: we account of foot to hold an elevator, we're taking

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Speaker 1: a risk. But some small risks are acceptable, and some

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Speaker 1: make life worth living. When I started spending time again

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Speaker 1: with vaccinated loved ones. That wasn't irresponsible behavior that merits

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Speaker 1: and apology. It's exactly what the COVID vaccines were for.

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Speaker 1: Risk compensation can be a good thing. Captain Kodrinsky was

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Speaker 1: taking a small risk in the sense that it wasn't

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Speaker 1: especially likely that his children would somehow contrive to crash

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Speaker 1: the plane, but it would be hard to describe that

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Speaker 1: risk as acceptable. The downside was just too big, and

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Speaker 1: now everything was spiraling out of control. Flight five nine

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Speaker 1: three was plunging towards the ground. The three qualified pilots

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Speaker 1: had been pinned back by the sudden g forces. Only

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Speaker 1: young Eldar had a proper grip on the controls. Hold it,

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Speaker 1: hold they hold it. The speed to the left, to

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Speaker 1: the left, left, left, the other way. I am turning

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Speaker 1: it left to the right, to the right. The autopilot

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Speaker 1: is no longer controlling the ailerons, but remember it hasn't

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Speaker 1: turned off completely. It responds to the loss of altitude

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Speaker 1: by pitching the nose up, which lessens the forces in

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Speaker 1: the cockpit just enough for Kadrinsky to reclaim his seat.

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Speaker 1: Get out, Get out, Get up, Get out. Elder, scrambling

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Speaker 1: out of the seat accidentally stands on the pedal that

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Speaker 1: controls the rudder, or perhaps it's Kadrinsky who stands on

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Speaker 1: it as he clambers in. Meanwhile, Viscadev has instinctively overcompensated

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Speaker 1: for the dive and pulled the control column back too far.

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Speaker 1: The plane is now pointing almost directly upwards. That is

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Speaker 1: it to store. The plane starts to nose dive, and

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Speaker 1: with the rudder deflected by the push of the pedal,

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Speaker 1: it starts to spin like a corkscrew too. The effect

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Speaker 1: is disorientating. Full powerful power, full power. I gave it,

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Speaker 1: full power, power, I gave it pulkpower. I gave it.

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Speaker 1: The way you recover a plane from a score is

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Speaker 1: by pointing the nose down and getting up enough speed

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Speaker 1: that you can gradually pull it back up again, come

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Speaker 1: out of the dive and level off coming out just

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Speaker 1: the power I reduced it gently un get out of

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Speaker 1: the p things by, and it would have been if

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Speaker 1: only they hadn't already fallen quite so far. A moment

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Speaker 1: after Captain Kadrinsky said everything's fine, the residence the coal

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Speaker 1: mining town of measure A Chenz were oken by the

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Speaker 1: sound of a distant explosion. It was two minutes to

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Speaker 1: one in the morning on a cold Thursday night in March.

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Speaker 1: Air traffic controllers were mystified. They had received no distress

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Speaker 1: call from the pilots. Flight five nine three had simply

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Speaker 1: disappeared from their radar. Was it a terrorist attack an asteroid?

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Speaker 1: They sent a search helicopter twelve miles from Measure to

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Speaker 1: rachensk The search helicopter found a raging fire on a hillside,

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Speaker 1: but at night in a forest, it couldn't land. The

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Speaker 1: search party arrived at daylight. The snow lay thick on

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Speaker 1: the ground. All seventy five passengers and crew had been

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Speaker 1: killed instantly. Some bodies had burned, others could be recognized,

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Speaker 1: including the ones and the cockpit, and the rescuers were puzzled.

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Speaker 1: Why were the bodies of two teenage kids in the

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Speaker 1: cockpit along with those of three pilots. On the second

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Speaker 1: day of the search, they found the plane's black box.

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Speaker 1: Investigators listened to the recording and understood what had happened

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Speaker 1: and how quickly. From Eldar asking why the plane was

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Speaker 1: turning to Kedrinsky saying they'd be fine, took just two

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Speaker 1: and a half minutes. What lesson might we learn from

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Speaker 1: the cautionary tale of Aeroflot flight five nine three. Don't

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Speaker 1: let your kids fly a passenger jet, obviously, but there

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Speaker 1: are other insights to be gained. The investigation taught manufacturers

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Speaker 1: of airplanes that a warning light is too easy to

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Speaker 1: miss when the autopilot is partially overridden. If there'd been

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Speaker 1: an audible alarm, the pilots might not have wasted those

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Speaker 1: vital few seconds being confused about why the plane was turning.

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Speaker 1: But for me, flight five nine three is the perfect

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Speaker 1: illustration of the Peltzman effect. Would Captain Kodrinsky have let

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Speaker 1: his teenage children sit at the plane's controls if the

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Speaker 1: plane hadn't had autopilot? Of course not. It's unthinkable. He

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Speaker 1: took the risk only because he felt protected. The lesson

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Speaker 1: isn't that we shouldn't have safety devices. Autopilots are a

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Speaker 1: good thing, so are seat belts. Nor is it that

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Speaker 1: we should never take any risks at all. The lesson,

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Speaker 1: I think is that whenever we rely on a safety

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Speaker 1: feet to protect us, we should notice that and try

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Speaker 1: to understand how it works and what are its limits,

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Speaker 1: so we can take informed decisions. It's true of COVID vaccines,

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Speaker 1: it's true of the sensors in elevator door mechanisms, and

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Speaker 1: it's true of autopilots, and not only for the obvious reasons,

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Speaker 1: because there's a final irony to Flight five nine three.

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Speaker 1: In their panic, the pilots forgot something that could have

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Speaker 1: saved them. As the stalled plane corkscrewed downwards. The autopilot

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Speaker 1: would have kicked in and recovered the situation if only

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Speaker 1: it had detected no pilot's inputs that the controls. When

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Speaker 1: Kadrinsky put his children in the pilot's chair, he was

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Speaker 1: trusting the autopilot too much. But when he and Piskadev

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Speaker 1: grapple to save the plane, they weren't trusting the autopilot enough.

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Speaker 1: If everyone had taken their hands off the controls of

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Speaker 1: flight five nine three, the autopilot would have saved them all.

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Speaker 1: For a full list of our sources, please see the

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Speaker 1: show notes at Tim Harford dot com. Cautionary Tales is

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Speaker 1: written by me Tim Harford with Andrew Wright. It's produced

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Speaker 1: by Ryan Dilley with support from Courtney Guarino and Emily Vaughan.

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Speaker 1: The sound design and original music is the work of

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Speaker 1: Pascal Wise. Julia Barton edited the scripts. It features the

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00:32:06,450 --> 00:32:10,890
Speaker 1: voice talents of Ben Crow, Melanie uh Ridge, Stella Harford,

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Speaker 1: and rufus Right. The show also wouldn't have been possible

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Speaker 1: without the work of Mia LaBelle, Jacob Weisberg, Heather Fane,

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Speaker 1: John Schnarz, Carlie Migliori, Eric Sandler, Royston Basserve, Maggie Taylor,

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Speaker 1: Nicole Morano, Daniello, Lakhan, and Maya Kanig. Cautionary Tales is

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Speaker 1: a production of Pushkin Industries. If you like the show,

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Speaker 1: please remember to share, rate and review, and if you

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Speaker 1: want to hear the show, add free and listen to

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00:32:40,370 --> 00:32:44,890
Speaker 1: four exclusive Cautionary Tale shorts. Then sign up for Pushkin

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00:32:44,970 --> 00:32:48,130
Speaker 1: Plus on the show page in Apple Podcasts or at

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Speaker 1: pushkin dot fm slash plus four