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On the evening of December 29, 1972, Eastern Air 401 (EA401) was on a routine flight from New York to Miami. Despite EA401 flying one of the most advanced aircraft at the time (the Lockheed L-1011), it crashed in the Florida Everglades killing 101 of its 176 passengers. Drawing from various first-hand accounts (cockpit voice recorder) and secondary evidence (news reports and online sources) of the tragedy, this teaching case provides a detailed account of the key events that took place leading up to the accident. The case describes how the pilots on EA401 were confronted with a simple scenario, a landing gear bulb not working in the cockpit, and through the distraction that ensued made a series of errors. Through many of the quotes in the text, readers gain an understanding of the impressions and perceptions of the pilots, including how they felt about many of the critical decisions and incidents during the last minutes of the flight. The case concludes by highlighting the main findings of the NTSB report.

Depending on individual course objectives, this case can take two or one day to debrief. Specifically, if this case is used in an organizational behavior course, most of the case questions could be discussed in one day. However, if this case is used in a capstone HRM or group dynamics type course on teams and team training and performance, a second day could be used to develop documentation outlining training design or performance evaluation designs.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the beneficial effect of a modified cognitive interview (MCI) on adolescents’ testimonies in case of a negative emotional event. Furthermore, the authors were interested in assessing the impact of a MCI on within-statement consistency.

In total, 37 adolescents (12-15 years) watched a emotionally negative video and were interviewed, seven days later, with a MCI or a structured (control) interview (SI).

Results showed that adolescents interviewed with the MCI reported significantly more correct and tended to report more incorrect information than those interviewed with the SI. Nonetheless, this rise in incorrect details did not impair the accuracy of statements gathered with the MCI (vs SI). Moreover, consistent, reminiscent, and forgotten information within a statement was positively linked to overall accuracy. In conclusion, testimonies gathered with the MCI might be perceived as more complete and detailed than the ones gathered with the SI.

The improvement of interview techniques helps solving criminal cases.

The innovative aspect of this work is that the benefits of the cognitive interview (CI) and the absence of an effect of inconsistency on accuracy are now also seen among adolescents.