Originally Posted by
skyhighlander
I've never had a pleasure of being on one of their aircrafts so can't really say how I would feel... every time I think about the Qantas case though tossing a coin comes to my mind. The more times you toss a head the more likely it is the next time it will be a tail. And Qantas certainly had its fair share of heads so they are way overdue for one tail...
...but that's just a human perception of course... from what I remember form math class and the probability theory the likelihood of tossing a head is still the same even after, say, 200 heads... But then again, how likely is it to happen? Not sure if there's a theory addressing that?
The problem here is twofold.
1. After 200 heads, it is still the same chance 201 will be heads or tails. Of course the chance to get 200 heads in a row is miniscule, but that already happened, so it shouldn't be counted there.
2. Safety is not a random chance. The fact alone that QF had 200 heads in a row is more of an indication that they are really, really, really good at getting heads in a coin toss.
As for the person in cockpit, for all we know she might have been airline employee with the requisite clearance. Either way, I think it's more likely than not she knew how to behave to not be a distraction. After all this evidently wasn't some random starlet in for a cool picture for her Instagram.