E85:When Success Leads to Disaster: Practical Drift & the 1994 Black Hawk Friendly Fire Shootdown

In 1994, two US Air force F15 fighters shot down two friendly US Army Black Hawk helicopters.This event shouldn't have been possible: there were experts, radio communications, radar, AWACS and more.However, this isn't a tragedy due to human error or a lack of safeguards, it happened in spite of the safeguards.This episode unpacks a few findings from the seminal book from Scott Snook called 'Friendly Fire'. We’ll explore how "Practical Drift" - the slow, invisible uncoupling of local practice from centralised procedure, turned a routine mission into a catastrophe. This book is a masterclass in what can happen when our Work-as-Imagined has little to do with the reality of Work-as-Done on the frontline.Support the channel: https://buymeacoffee.com/benhutchinson