I always thought that they banned smoking out of a health concern. I can't believe smoking was allowed all those years when it was also an operational safety concern too.

As for the post regarding the smoking ban on military aircraft, for some reason, the military seams to be a step ahead with in-air safety. For instance, the military has already converted all of their wiring that has been determined to be dangerous; whereas, commercial aircraft are still flying with the dangerous caplon wiring; a documentary that I watched said that commercial aircraft are even more suseptable to wiring chaffing than military fighter jets.