Air Travel...A Calculated Risk?
31.12.69
The mysteries that are obscured behind the cockpit door of a commercial airliner or corporate jet are rarely contemplated by most travelers. After boarding, we lead business, are excited to be on vacation or are concerned about whether they are on-time. We make our last call, send an e-despatch or text, and settle down to either a nap or an anxious takeoff. We know little about the engineering entrancing that makes a 400 plus ton machine on a tricycle gear lift itself towards the sky. We think very scrap about the two strangers sitting in the cockpit wearing crisp company uniforms with striated epaulets on their shoulders. We don't know where they learned to fly, whether they were at the top or bottom of their class, what problems they suffer in their lives, or other factors that may touch their competency during your flight.
Yet, we routinely allow them to take us hurtling down the runway at 150 miles per hour or so, then 5 to 7 miles above Soil into the stratosphere, a remarkably hostile environment often with hurricane force winds and Arctic winter temperatures, flying at speeds of 500 miles per hour or more. A recall where the air is so thin most of us would be rendered unconscious in a very short period of time. When given a two seconds's thought, it is a remarkable leap of faith routinely taken by millions of travelers worldwide.
What should we over recall about the recent published events about flight attendants opening the shanty door of an airliner while taxiing, deploying the emergency chute and escaping with two beers, one in each index? Or how about the flight attendant who may have suffered a breakdown during flight screaming about bombs and crashing?
Most recently, a captain of a stock and well-known airline, reportedly with an impeccable reputation, disrupted a bugger off with shouts and screams about bombs and al-Qaeda. Is there a history of these incidents? Miserably, yes. A popular mail and air freight company aircrew suffered a keen in-flight bludgeoning by a distraught fellow pilot who had unknowingly stowed away in the ample jet aircraft. Despite these incidents, in-flight disruptions by flight crews and show a clean pair of heels attendants are rare.
Source: PropertyCasualty360