Word: aircrafting
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...just got a lot more dangerous. Destroying the tunnels that allowed the import of both vital food and fuel supplies denied Gazans by the Israeli blockade - but that also enabled the ferrying of weapons to Hamas - was a key objective of Israel's 22-day military operation, and its aircraft and artillery pounded the sandy patch of land along the Egyptian border in the hope of collapsing them. But as soon as the truce was declared, the diggers got busy again, using shovels and jackhammers to repair tunnels caved in by bombing and to begin burrowing new ones...
...Since the cease-fire, the tunnelmakers have become more brazen. They dig in plain sight of the Egyptian border watchtowers and Israeli surveillance aircraft, with a large bubble of tattered plastic over each entrance. Thousands of Gazans swarm around the pitted, sandy area because the tunnels are now the enclave's biggest source of employment. The men carry shovels, ropes and stacks of wooden slats used to reinforce the tunnels where cave-ins are nearly as big a danger as Israeli bombs. Others emerge from the plastic bubbles carting away goods destined for merchants throughout Gaza, who placed orders weeks...
...start with the statistics: First, most plane crashes are more like this one than we think. More people survive than die. Aircraft in distress don't drop, screaming, out of the sky into the fires of hell. They end up on the ground or in water, and people must get out quickly. Those who fare best are usually those who are prepared: the pilot who has flown for four decades and trained for calamity; the man in the exit row who has read the safety card...
...facing rising international outrage over its Gaza offensive, in which, according to Palestinian health workers, nearly one-third of those killed were women and children. In trying to root out Hamas fighters, Israel subjected the Gaza Strip, which teems with more than 1.5 million Palestinians, to scorching fire from aircraft, naval gunships, artillery, tanks and troops backed by helicopter gunships...
...they are above or below 10,000 feet - Flight 1549 was at about 3,000 feet, leaving Sullenberger and Skiles a shorter checklist. But experts also note that a controlled landing on water can be more dangerous than a similar emergency landing on land. In a water landing, an aircraft's aluminum skin can bend and dent on impact, providing less protection for passengers. Crashing on a runway often crushes a plane's belly and undercarriage, which absorbs some of the blow. On the other hand, some emergency water landings (both uncontrolled and controlled) have had relatively minor fatalities. This...