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Old Jan 9, 2009, 7:14 am
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Mofomat
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Join Date: Dec 2003
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Originally Posted by BHDBOY
I think changing flight numbers after an accident is more of a American thing, certainly BA38 (The 777 that came home with a thud about a year ago) is still BA38 today. Perhaps it is the tendency of US news channels to refer to accidents by their flight numbers e.g. They might refer to 'Lockerbie' as 'Flight 103.' Most adults in the UK would remember 'Kegworth' with a little prompting but due to the nature of the reporting at the time, BD92 is just another flight number.
Although pretty much everything you've said I agree with, I suspect BA38 would no longer exist as a flight number if the aircraft hadn't have made the airport boundary and there was a catastrophic accident.

And when BD92 crashed there was no such thing as 24 hour news channels and the world was a very different place, and it wouldn't have received the almost morbid attention from journalists as it would do today. Therefore I think had it have happened more recently people may have been more aware of the flight number and it would indeed have been retired.

This last point is supported by the fact that you yourself cannot remember the flight number of a serious and fatal accident (BD92), yet you can remember the flight number of an accident where nobody died (BA38). This is because of the coverage I believe.
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