About that Plane Crash into the Hudson
Posted on January 16, 2009
Filed Under Uncategorized |
I was talking with someone a few months ago and we ended up talking about, of all things, airplane safety speeches. I made the point that the “in the event of a water landing” part of the speech was redundant because in the history of commercial aviation there had yet to be a successful water landing of a modern jet aircraft. Like a lot of things about modern day commercial air travel, there is a lot of theatre that is only there to make us feel better about the experience.
My friend pointed out the Ethiopian Airlines hijacking crash in 1996, however it is difficult to call that a successful water landing when in fact it crashed and cartwheeled which resulted in 2/3 of the passengers being killed.
As of yesterday the history books will include the only successful water landing of a commercial jet.
It appears to be the first time that a large commercial jet liner ever has made a successful controlled landing into a body of water.
On a related topic, yesterday’s crash failed, thankfully, to break a record year for safety in U.S. commercial aviation. It has been two years since a fatality occurred in a commercial aviation crash, making 2007-2008 one of the safest periods in 50 years.
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My name is Jeff Nolan and I write Venture Chronicles. I am the VP of Product Marketing for Get Satisfaction and I write about a range of topics that interest me, including public policy, technology, entrepreneurship, finance, and global issues.
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