The Importance of Airline Safety
Many people travel by airplane all around the world. For some people it is the only way they can get to where they are going. On a daily basis, averages of 28 to 30,000 seats are filled on airplanes (Bear, Stearns Co. URL www.hotelonline.com). At each airport, there are hundreds of arrivals and departures worldwide. Even though airline officials say flying is safe, accidents kill many people because airlines neglect to prevent human error or repair faulty equipment.
Sometimes I think the only reason an airplane could crash is if something on the plane were to break. However, most of the time that is not the case. A survey conducted by Boeing found that flight crews were responsible for at least seventy-three percent of all fatal airplane accidents. (Gray 17). Forty-one percent of these accidents occurred during landing because of unstable approaches. Also an investigation by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration on the causes of airline accidents revealed that more than eighty percent of all airline accidents involved some degree of human error (Helmreich 62). This is very alarming when people are putting their lives in the hands of flight crews. Forty-four passengers died aboard a new British Midland 737 after its crew shut down the wrong engine after the other one malfunctioned (Greenwald 40). Do you really think that flying on an airplane, over which you have absolutely no control is very safe?
Reasons for flight crew error can be explained by the conditions under which they are flying. Flight crew fatigue is a largely increasing problem on many of the jumbo jet flights today. Although there are laws that prohibit cockpit crews from sleeping in flight, there have been many weary pilots that have been known to nod off on occasion during some of their seventeen hour, non-stop flights (Urquhart 15). Perhaps laws should regulate the number of hours a flight crew is in the air instead of prohibiting sleep in flight. Another condition, alcohol abuse, has been found to inhibit the abilities of some flight crews. A northwest crew flying from North Dakota to Minnesota was found to be intoxicated on the job ("Air Safety" 61). Some people refuse to drive at night because of the number of drunk drivers on the road. Would passengers want a drunken pilot to be responsible for their...
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... since the 1960s (Shrontz 40). Getting to some places throughout the world depend solely on air travel; therefore, people must trust their lives to flight crews, safety inspectors, and maintenance crews and believe that all problems are being addressed and corrected.
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Apple Computer Inc designs, manufactures, and markets personal computers and related personal computing and communication solutions. The return of Steve Jobs, the companies founder, as CEO has pulled the company’s stock price up 775-percent through his launch of innovative products such as the iMac computer line. On January 5, 2000, Jobs announced that he was dropping interim from his CEO title and taking the job full-time. With this news and Apple’s new products such as the iBook, a portable pc and Quick TV, an internet television access feature, Apple Computer is headed for success and is sure to increase their share in the computer market.
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Prabhu Desai, A. (n.d.). In Indian Aviation statistics: Indigo, Kingfisher rule!. Retrieved March 26, 2014, from
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Feist, J., & Feist, G. J. (2009). Theories of Personality, Seventh Edition. Retrieved from http://ecampus.phoenix.edu/content/eBook