Word: piloting
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...been four days since a U.S. spy plane and a Chinese fighter collided over the South China Sea. The incident was undoubtedly an accident and a regrettable one: though the U.S. crew made an emergency landing on Hainan Island and thankfully escaped injury, the Chinese pilot is presumed lost at sea. However, an incident that could have been addressed with propriety by both sides has instead degenerated into a serious diplomatic incident, and both the U.S. and the Chinese government should take immediate steps to heal the wounds opened by the crash...
Yesterday’s statement of regret on the loss of the Chinese pilot issued by Secretary of State Colin Powell was welcome and appropriate. A formal apology before the facts are gathered would have been a disservice to the American crew. But the statement should have come days earlier, as soon as the Chinese pilot was listed as missing. The U.S. should attempt to make up for its laxity by offering its aid in any search for the wreckage and communicating its regret directly to the pilot’s family...
...government can, and does, regulate the industry in all areas of safety, since airplane maintenance practices and pilot training all have the potential to take lives. But delineating, for instance, how much a passenger must be compensated when she is bumped from a flight, is best left to market forces and the airlines themselves...
Pentagon and Navy officials and pilots uniformly deride the Chinese claim that the lumbering turboprop airplane, which can travel only half as fast as the pair of Chinese F-8s that were shadowing it, was to blame for the accident. "That claim makes as much sense as a guy in a powerboat complaining when he hits a sailboat," one senior Navy officer said. "It's the powerboat guy's responsibility - just like it's the jet pilot's responsibility - to avoid the slow mover...
...with a Chinese air force fighter on Sunday. To understand why, flip the script for a moment: Imagine a Chinese plane flying a surveillance mission off the Florida coast colliding with an Air Force F-16 sent on an aggressive monitoring mission. The U.S. fighter goes down and the pilot is lost; the Chinese plane is forced to land on U.S. soil. The incident occurs at a moment when China is about to supply a package of sophisticated weapons to Cuba (possibly including the very same model spy plane now in U.S. hands); is planning to deploy a missile shield...