Not as safe as they could be (How safe do you feel about flying?)

Member Name: HeavenlyTwin

Product:	How safe do you feel about flying?
Date:	19/08/01 (70 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: quick way of getting from A to B, Makes international travel accessible to the masses

Disadvantages: Not enough maintenance inspections done, or work carried out, Air Traffic Controllers dealing with antiquated equipment and not up to the volume expected today, flights are often overbooked, people are crammed into small spaces, sometimes flights leavea lot to be desired.,

First of all, let me say I DO NOT FLY! I have flown, way back when I allowed myself to be "persuaded" to do so, but after my last flight, I got off, kissed the ground and in tears, I told my husband "I'm big enough and ugly enough not to do this to myself anymore!"... and I haven't. I had never had a "bad" flight, never hit turbulence or flown through a storm, all of my flights had been routine in so much as they had no problems.

They weren't routine for me though. Each getting progressively worse, causing me longer attacks of panic until even after I had stopped flying, taking my husband to the airport would trigger all kinds of weird emotions. I could not even stand in the line to check him in, without constantly giving myself a reality check that I was NOT flying.

Now some may have found my terror amusing to begin with. My very first flight, three kids and I loaded on a plane going to America, to a new life, to be met by my husband. There I was in tears, eyes clenched shut, gripping the seat in front of me. My kids were all excited about flying and looking out of the window and chattering away ... and people were still loading onto the plane up the gangplank, because we were still loading. Not a twitter of an engine at that point. The poor stewardess doing her best to calm me, deserved a medal. I can only imagine what she was thinking - if I was like that when we were still firmly on the ground, what was I going to be like once we were up in the air.

Other flights were equally distressing for me, although some were as distressing for the other passengers too. Like the night flight my husband booked us on, thinking that if he kept me awake all day, I'd sleep on the flight. Good thinking ... but the reality was that I woke up part way, saw lights flashing and thought we had another plane coming at us. There had been lots of reports of near misses in the media just before that. b
y the time they had managed to calm me down, and explained that those flashing lights were on OUR wing tips, I'd woken most of the plane.

This piece though is not about me or my problems with flying, though, it is to do with airline safety. Is flyiing safe?

We've all heard over the years, that we stand a greater chance of being in an accident on the roads than we do on a plane. That is basically true. There has also been much made of the fact that we only hear of plane crashes because of the sheer volume of people involved. Again, that is probably true. however, if people were to ask me if I consider flying as safe as maybe ten years ago, I would have to say "no".

I am not casting aspersions at any pilots when I say that I think the majority of airline crashes are caused by human error. Rather, that for the most part, these are older planes that fly day in and day out, and receive little more than a cursory walk around before most flights, to check for things that might cause a problem during the flight. Routine maintenance is often less than thorough, and one only has to think of the speed that an aircraft is moving at, to realise the speed with which maybe a loose bolt will become a projectile. Cracks in metal (metal fatigue) may appear small to the naked eye, but once you apply the factors of speed and the pressure being applied during flight, these can become serious defects. A cursory inspection is not enough.

Equally, assuming a safe plane, and a sound pilot, there is still the issue of taking off and landing. Air Traffic Controllers are dealing with antiquated systems, many built in the sixties and seventies, before air travel grew to the size it is today. They are challenged to keep safe those planes in their portion of air space, having to keep them on different paths at different levels, maintaining voice contact with them and keeping track simply by looking at blips on a screen.

A f
ew years ago, I believe it was in the USA, a surcharge was added to tickets that was supposed to go towards updating the systems and hiring more air traffic controllers. Somehow, the money has been swallowed up and has not gone to where it was supposed to. Despite further growth in the amount of planes flying, and the flights in and out of various airports, there has been little (if any) change to the system used when taking off and landing. Apparently, they remain the two most dangerous parts of flying.

Personally, I do not believe that air travel is as safe as it is purported to be. Despite cursory checks on a daily basis, major ones apparently take place only every two and four years - yet a car in England has to be inspected every year for mechanical and structural safety. I believe there needs to be at least yearly overhauls.

Money needs to be spent on updating the Air Traffic Control system all over the world, making sure that new equipment is installed and that the people working there are not as stressed by the sheer volume of planes they are responsible for. In the present system there is little room for error. People are human, they make mistakes. We need to make sure there is enough time available for someone to correct a mistake.

I do not fly, but my family does. My husband is an aircraft technician working for Lockheed-Martin. Maybe that makes me more aware of certain things that can go wrong, I don't know. I do know that life is precious and should not be set aside in deference to profit. Money needs to be spent in order to make it truly the safest form of transport.

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