GateHold

For November 12, 2011
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This Saturday, November 12, 2011, marks the tenth anniversary of the crash of American Airlines flight 587 near Kennedy Airport. Flight 587, an Airbus A300 bound for Santo Domingo, went down in the Belle Harbor section of Queens moments after takeoff from JFK airport killing 265 people.

Flight 587 was well known among New York City's Dominican community. In 1996, merengue star Kinito Mendez paid a sadly foreboding tribute with his song El Avion. "How joyful it could be to go on flight 587," he sang, immortalizing the popular daily nonstop.

This was a catastrophe to be sure. But it was also the last multiple-fatality crash involving a major airline on US soil. There have been several terrible crashes involving regional planes, and in 2005 a young boy was killed when a Southwest Airlines 737 skidded off a snowy runway in Chicago. Yet amazingly, an entire decade has passed since the last large-scale crash involving a mainline US carrier. Close to TEN BILLION passengers have flown aboard US airlines in that span.

This is a record unsurpassed in virtually the entire history of US commercial aviation.

Lack of a headline tragedy does not indicate an absence of problems, of course. And about the worst thing we can do is rest on our laurels (surely, yes, there has been an element of luck to this streak). But despite unprecedented public contempt for the largest airlines, and despite the fiscal devastation they have endured over the past decade (five bankruptcies and counting), they've nevertheless maintained a nearly perfect safety record.

How we got to this level is mainly the result of better training and, perhaps to a lesser degree, better technology. We've engineered away what * used to be * the most common causes of accidents.

And, yes, we've been lucky too.

It remains to be seen how the media will note this anniversary, if at all. Plane crashes, not a lack of them, are usually the big news.



Patrick Smith

http://www.askthepilot.com
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mikew99

This is all quite surprising, considering the proliferation of cell phones, iPods, and other electronic gadgets causing dangerous interference with the navigational equipment in the cockpit.

nerd

I think to the general public, there was a recent crash by a major carrier (Continental) killing 50 people in Buffalo. I don't think they necessarily know or care that it was operated by Colgan Air.

coastdk

deleted because I should have read the whole post and not just the title

nerd

The article (and thread title) is referring to U.S. mainline carriers.

coastdk

Yes I realised that which is why I edited my post.

drbobguy

++

Continental Express is a major carrier as far as the public is concerned. But your right that there is a real perception regional turboprops/jets are perceived to be more risky, whereas flying a 737 or bigger on a major airliner is now taken to be completely safe, at least among my friends and family.

I rode the train Washington->Cleveland recently and a friend actually asked me if I was worried, since there have been Amtrak derailments in the past. Having lived in the former Soviet Union the idea that trains are more dangerous than planes struck me as crazy.

Wally Bird

But the title does not indicate that. US parochialism again .

pinworm

There have been some near misses though...the "Miracle On The Hudson" could have been "The Horror In Jersey" pretty easily! And there were two fuselage breaches on WN flights as well..luckily they landed safely. A friend of mine was on one of those aircraft but got off at PHX before take off on the leg in which it happened.

I don't fall for the gambler's fallacy here though. A lack or proliferation of crashes in a given time period has no bearing on the odds of being in a crash unless the cause of that lack or proliferation is systemic. The odds are the same and reset each time you get on a plane. Like flipping a quarter, a string of heads over tails does not mean you are more due for heads on the next flip.

fjord

Hmm, Comair 191, LEX-ATL killed 49 in 2006. That is a pretty major accident in my book.

sunnyjl

So we have to be PC on every single thread now? There's no gun at your head saying you have to participate in this thread. Start your own if you like.

Bob'sYourUncle

Nothing to do with PC - you do realise a lot of non-US people read this board, and in light of e.g. the AF crash, the JK crash, the title is just plain wrong.

WRCSolberg

Of course, if you took half a second to think about it, you'd realize that's what he meant. It's more or less understood to someone with two brain cells to run together.

At any rate, I'd consider the US incident on the Hudson to be a major crash, albeit not a fatal one.

I agree. The distinction between being operated by a mainline carrier and a regional carrier is rather meaningless, IMO. We've had several fatal crashes here in the past decade. Colgan, the Jetstream outside of Kirksville, MO, the CRJ at Jefferson City, MO, the Lexington crash, etc.

Wally Bird

Yes, I'm sorry. I forgot that only Americans read this site and that anything which happens outside the US is completely unimportant.

A thread title such as this is an insult the memory of all the passengers who have been killed worldwide in the past 10 years.

Broaden your horizons. @:-)

t325

The CRJ in Jeff City was two dumbass pilots playing around on a ferry flight with no passengers. Bit of a difference. But I agree completely though - regional flights shouldn't be counted out, especially with airlines moving more and more service to regional carriers. For people in some cities, the only way to get in or out is on a regional carrier, and I don't think "no mainline crashes in 10 years" is going to be much comfort to them.

Besides - how many people actually know the distinction between a regional airline and a mainline? If you buy a ticket through Continental's website, check in at Continental's desk, the signage at the gate is Continental's, and the plane is painted in Continental's livery, most people are going to assume the flight is operated by Continental. And when it goes down and kills 50 people because of inexperienced pilots, then the headlines are going to read "Continental Flight Crashes In Buffalo". We know it was really Colgan and not Continental, but does the average person? Absolutely not.

The airlines can't have it both ways - if they want to use cheap regional carriers that are essentially a farm system for pilots to save a few bucks and advertise "We have nonstop service to BFE!" then they're going to have to have their name associated with it when something goes horribly wrong. They can't have their cake and eat it too.