Well, not exactly, but the Miami crash is not exactly the first incident in American Airlines' [recent] history, nor certainly not in the history of American airlines, either.

So, why, with the recent SQ crash, the first in its history, is all this banter spurred in FT as well as the media at large about how the airline is lax in enforcing it flight minimum standards, how its flight attendants with their Asian somatoform and traditional dress were wholly useless if not downright obstructive in evacuation, how Asian pilots may not be as technically competent (obfuscated by using the terms, "Not as proficient in the English language"), and that Asian airlines and airports as a whole should be carefully scrutinized for their 'dismal' safety record?

Seems to me that for every China Airlines crash, there are a couple more to go around on US carriers.

Seems to me that AA hasn't enjoyed an incident-free year in the past 3 years.

Seems to me that the Concorde, with its proliferate structural cracks, tire ruptures, environmental impact, and generally questionable safety and reliability record is flown by Anglo/Franco carriers AF and BA. I'm not even going to go into how the recently crashed Concorde was taking off out of Paris (not BKK), had Goodyear tires (not Toyo or Yokohoma), and that one of the foci of causative factors is debris from a McDonnell/Boeing DC-10 in Continental livery.

KAL jets have indeed gone down - hell, even been shot down - by substantiated pilot error. But in the US, as we have seen with ValuJet, pilots don't even need to do anything wrong to bring people to prematurely meet their maker.

Taking off in foul weather? The Asian airlines telling you, "Yeah, we get typhoons here all the time, and we take off in them since we're used to them," got you jittery? Let's try it on the other end. Ever hear the CVR or read the transcript of AA in Little Rock (and that's not "Ritto Rock," by the way)?

Folks, if we're going to point the finger, let alone scream bloody murder, we ourselves ought to be beyond reproach.

[This message has been edited by FQTV (edited 11-20-2000).]