Word: aircrafting
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Even with its overall record of safety excellence, flying by its very nature can arouse fear. Passengers must surrender control of their fate to the plane and its pilot once the aircraft leaves the ground. And while a driver may suffer only minor injury or even walk away from the scene of a car wreck, air crashes are generally fatal...
...sifting of evidence from the 1985 crashes shows that the accidents have few common threads. Eight airlines and six kinds of aircraft were involved in major fatal incidents. The causes ranged from a probable bomb aboard the Air-India jet liner lost off Ireland, to wind shear--a violent shift in air currents--in the case of the downed Delta craft. Such differences have led some experts to call the mishaps a statistical aberration. Concludes John Enders, president of the Flight Safety Foundation, a Virginia research and consulting group: "It's a kind of fluke, a confluence...
...fleet of civilian aircraft is generally well regarded. While the Boeing 747 was involved in both the Air-India and the Japan Air Lines disasters, pilots still give the jumbo jet high marks. One British Airways captain, referring to the 747's ability to tolerate errors, calls the plane "the most forgiving thing that flies." Experts are concerned, though, that some carriers may be flying their aircraft too long. "The problem of an aging fleet is a constant one," says John Galipault, president of the Aviation Safety Institute, an Ohio-based consumer watchdog group. "Planes are like people--you have...
...taking a careful look at the jet engines used in commercial aircraft. Inspectors began fanning out last month to investigate the 20 U.S. repair shops that service the jets. They are particularly interested in the Pratt & Whitney JT8D series, a highly respected engine that powered the aircraft involved in three of last year's major accidents. Said one inspector: "The series powers more than half of all the jet planes flying in the Western world, and they've been flown a long time. So naturally we wonder if we've all gotten complacent about them." Pratt & Whitney denies any link...
...travel, down 13% from the size of the work force just before President Reagan fired strikers in 1981. Of those now employed, only 57% are considered fully qualified, as compared with 82% who held that rating before the strike. One possible result: the number of near misses between aircraft reached a record 592 in 1984, and grew at an even faster pace during the first five months of last year. Reacting to pressure from Congress, Transportation Secretary Elizabeth Dole has agreed to add nearly 1,000 new controllers during the next two years...