The story of Korean Airlines

I have just returned from a 5 day detoxification retreat (fasting mimicking diet, sauna and cold plunge). I'm not going to lie- it wasn't the easiest or the most fun I've had in my life. However, I do love a good, safe challenge and this was precisely that. And apparently, the metabolic benefit of such a challenge can last anywhere between 6 to 12 months. This is the reason my newsletter is late this week- because I have just arrived yesterday from Lockhart, TX. Full trip report to follow! Stay tuned, please.

I have connected with some amazing humans, from all over the world. We had a sense of camaraderie and trust. We supported each other through hunger, and anger and sadness, and fear. We projected our own invisible shadow on each other, brought back the projections once we became aware of what we were doing, did PARTS work (thank you, Richard Schwartz and your amazing IFS system of making people whole again), did a whole bunch of dreamwork (thank you, Carl Jung, may you rest in peace, for your incredible insights are helping so many make sense of what their soul is trying to communicate- that is, of course, if one believes that the soul is real).

There were a lot of us hungry people at the retreat. From many parts of the world, with many different languages. Sometimes, the cultural baggage was too heavy to carry, and we had to find a common ground. Thank goodness for English and the clarity a common language can provide, when used properly.

One of the humans I met there, told the story of Korean Airlines. It touched me deeply and I will share it here. It's an illustration of how cultural baggage can affect us without knowing, it can sneak into our bones, it can metaphorically become part of our DNA, until we let some light in to illuminate our blind spots.

Here we go:

"For a long time, Korean Air was haunted by something subtle. Not ghosts in the machines or reckless cowboys in the cockpit — no, their pilots were trained killers turned caretakers. Former military men. Sharp. Disciplined. These were the kind of men who knew the bones of their aircraft like a master blacksmith knows steel.

But still… planes kept falling out of the sky.

Investigators dove in with their usual scapels: Was it mechanical? No. Was it incompetence? Absolutely not. Over and over, the black boxes told the same ghost story that the crew knew, that they could feel the wrongness. And despite of knowing, no one stopped the slide in time.

Korean Air Flight 801 was the wake-up call. The plane was coming in low. Too low. Rain slashed across the windshield, visibility was trash, and the navigation system was spitting static. The captain, exhausted. The air, heavy. A junior officer tried to speak.

He didn’t say, “We’re too low. Pull up.” He said something like, “Captain… the situation does not appear favorable.”

Translated through the body, it probably felt like, I know you’re the father. I know I’m the child. But the dragon is here. Please... look.

But the sentence didn't convey at all what it was meant to convey. It didn’t interrupt. It didn’t demand. It very gently painted an "unfavorable" situation.

Seconds later, steel met earth.

Not a single person on that flight died because they were stupid.They died because no one felt allowed to speak plainly.

When the experts finally stopped looking at control panels and started looking at culture, they saw it. Korea — steeped in Confucianism. A civilization where hierarchy isn’t just social. It’s sacred. Elders are to be honored. Authority is a pillar. To challenge it is to crack the foundation.

These aren’t flaws. These are the ancient algorithms of harmony. They make villages work. But a cockpit is not a village. It’s a crucible. And in crucibles, ambiguity kills.

And here’s where it gets mythic.

Because it wasn’t enough to retrain pilots. To slap wrists and repeat procedures. No, the transformation came when Korean Air did something radical:

They brought in an American consultant. They brought in an outside pair of eyes who could see what no one else who was deeply steeped in the culture could see.

And the Americans, in their outside- of-culture, practical way of looking at things did the unthinkable: they changed the language.

They made English the required tongue in every cockpit. Not because English is better, but because English doesn't kneel. It doesn’t cradle status in its verbs. A first officer can say, “Abort landing. Go around.” It doesn’t wait.

Captains were trained to invite challenge. Not tolerate it — invite it. Because in that steel womb, silence is not respect. Silence is death.

And the result?

A phoenix.

In just a few years, Korean Air went from being whispered about in fear to being held up as one of the safest airlines on the planet.

Gladwell told this story in Outliers, but he seems to have missed the sacred thread: this wasn’t about failure. This was about ancestral genius clashing with an alien environment. The same wisdom that creates communal stability became a curse in a cockpit. Not because the ancestors were wrong — but because the environment had changed.

This story doesn’t stay with us because of the tragedy. It stays because it echoes.

It echoes in hospitals where nurses feel the wrongness but don't speak over the surgeon’s ego.In family dinners where children know something is off, but have learned to keep their mouths shut.In boardrooms where women compress their truth so they won’t be labeled “b$%@*s.”In immigrant households where the very language that once protected them now costs them clarity and confidence.

This story isn’t about airplanes. It’s about psyche. It’s about language. It’s about the ancient software still running in our blood — and the moment it collides with the cold steel of modern systems.

And maybe — just maybe — it’s NOT about trying harder or being braver.

Maybe healing begins by updating the code. Not erasing the ancestors. Just learning to speak in a way that lands in the now.

Because sometimes, to save ourselves, we have to speak in a foreign tongue.

And say plainly: We are too low. Pull up."

If this story brings tears to your eyes, like it did to mine, please let me know.