AirlineRatings.com editor Geoffrey Thomas has won Best Safety story at the global Aviation Media Awards in London.

Thomas’s article was published in the trade journal Australian Aviation and also in part on AirlineRatings.com

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The award was presented at a gala dinner at the Royal Aeronautical Society headquarters in London on Sunday night ahead of the Farnborough Air Show.

Mr Thomas’s article entitled Coming Up Short researched, with the University of Southern California, the complex pilot cultural factors surrounding the crash of an Asiana 777 at San Francisco last year.

The research article found that intense flight and systems training cannot always remove cultural lessons imparted up to age of 10.

In the Asiana crash the captain under training, who was flying the Boeing 777, said because of the Korean culture he was too afraid to admit he could not fly a visual approach and when the plane was too low said it was the instructing captain's role to abort the landing.


Mr Thomas was presented with his award by famous German test pilot Marc "Turbo" Grune (left) and Chris Stellwag from CAE sponsors of the award.