NavList:

Howard G., you wrote:
" 'Air Crash Investigation' - and it was the investigation into the Kobe helicopter crash in California - and up popped a modern term that I had never heard of
(Plan) Continuation Bias"  is the unconscious cognitive bias to continue with the original plan in spite of changing conditions."

That's a good episode, isn't it? The discussions of all these cognitive biases that contribute to accidents is great stuff --and it's also a nice reminder that we must be aware of such biases when watching entertainment documentaries like this. As I mentioned in my earlier post, they're fitting their stories into certain molds. The last episode of the latest season breaks that mold: it's the story of the 737 Max catastrophe... And that Boeing crime is on-going.

And:
"I used a different term in one of my posts that could be broadly considered the same - a common malady we called in the air force  "Pushonitis"."

Yes, I agree that it's the same thing, and I think the cognitive psychologists agree, also. By using the terminology from cognitive psychology in recent decades, I think they achieve two goals. First, on a superficial level, it provides a varnish of science. While "pushonitis" and "plan continuation bias" are fundamentally the same thing, and while the "-itis" term is easy to understand and has a certain charm to it, the term from the cognition gang is more professional. Second, on a deeper level, the cognition term immediately leads to a larger professional literature on this behavioral issue, and that means better analysis and better science. But same thing, right? It's "pushonitis" :).

Speaking of cognitive biases, there is a critical press conference happening right now (this very minute, as I type this message...) involving the broken Boeing "Starliner" spacecraft and the level of risk to the two crew who would fly it home if that decision is made. It's a big deal on multiple levels. Another Boeing failure... A complex risk versus reward analysis... NASA on the spot risking astronaut lives... and there's that issue of "pushonitis" both in terms of the present flight and later on in terms of "sunk costs". Will Boeing kill this project after spending so much money? As of today, Boeing still assures us that the spacecraft is safe, and NASA should "push on". No doubt about it, there are discussions of cognitive biases in this story.

You wrote:
"I suspect Amelia Earhart was suffering this malady when she took off from Lao"

Earhart and Noonan, too. Yes, I'm sure that's true. By the way: that airfield and town, now a substantial city, is "Lae", isn't it? Or is there an alternate pronunciation/spelling here?

You concluded:
"Captain Earhart decided to continue - their fate was sealed."

Yes, but that is true whether the decision is right or wrong, whether they live or die, since that is more or less an alternate definition of the 'point of no return': it's the point after which, if you continue, your fate is sealed ...for better or worse, life or death. We can be sure that Noonan and Earhart had a discussion as they neared the point of no return high above the Pacific in 1937, but we simply do not know what evidence they had or how that discussion went down.

Frank Reed