Recent Influx in Crashes? Coincidence or not?
Lauren Williams
Remains of AtlasJet Airline MD-83 crash in Isparta, Turkey.November 2007.AFP/Stringer/Getty Images
Montana, Hudson River, Tokyo, Indonesia, Buffalo, Amsterdam; these locations are among the many that have been hit with disastrous plane crashes recently. Didn’t someone once tell us that travel by plane is the safest way to go? Is this still the case? Are those people sitting there scratching their heads right now debating what the hell went wrong?
With the number of plane crashes mounting up in 2009 alone, I, as well as many others are strongly beginning to question the safety of this once trusted mode of transport.
The news of the Air New Zealand Airbus test flight from France in November 2008, was devestating- taking off from France, it went down without current known cause near Canet-en-Roussillon.
Then came the others, two within a month in New York alone; Buffalo and the Hudson River, Amsterdam Schipol Airport, Tokyo, London, Sydney.
Some have reported weather incidents that may have attributed, but in all seriousness we need to look at the overall picture here- Is it just a coincidence that all of these crashes have happened in such a short period of time?
Now I am no expert on the construction of planes, but as a frequent flyer, I demand to know whether or not I will be safe on my next flight.
Lets take a look at the common factors in these recent incidents.
-Tokyo; A FedEX cargo plane on arrival into Narita International Airport crashed and burst into flames. With factors such as high winds being possible contributors to the accident.
-West Java, Indonesia; a military plane doing routine training has crashed with 24 fatalities. The conditions were wet at the time.
-Schiphol International Airport, Amsterdam; a Boeing 737 was split into three sections after crashing on the runway. According to sources the aircraft was repaired twice the week before the incident.The plane appeared to have damage on the tail end, suggesting that was where it hit the runway. Dutch Safety Authority official, Fred Sanders said, “This may indicate that the plane had lost its forward momentum, that there was no motor function”. The weather conditions were slightly misty, and there were light winds at the time.
-Mount Everest, Nepal; There were two fatalities when a small passenger plane got into trouble and caught fire near Mount Everest. An official reporting on the accident from Kathmandu Airport, Mr Adhikari says, “The aircraft took off from Kathmandu when the weather was all right but later on the weather deteriorated. Perhaps the deteriorated weather contributed”.
In almost all of these cases the fuselage caught on fire, but how and why is the question.
Is the weather really to blame in all of these incidents? Or is there something more to it?
While all of these cases are still under investigation, many officials are claiming that birds could have caused the accidents. Are we just plucking at straws here? Or could this really all be down to some misguided geese taking a wrong turn?
In 2007, A China Airlines Boeing 737-800 jet encountered problems when its left engine caught fire just after arrival in Okinawa on route from Taipei. At the time, Officials suspected that the fuel may have been leaking, causing the engine to catch fire. Witnesses heard the explosion, and describe the plane as ‘sagging on the side’ but the tail was still ‘intact’. China Airlines reported that the aircraft had recently undergone maintenance.
However, this is not the first time China Airlines has come under scrutiny; in the past 15 years they have had several fatal incidents including several in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Japan. There still has been no official report released on the Okinawa incident.
There have been many other incidents that have also gone almost unnoticed and unreported in the mainstream media. Leading to the question- Are they trying to hide something?
-Last month, an Emirates EK 407 flight departing from Melbourne, encountered a near fatal incident that went unreported to the media. After some time it was reported that this was the most serious accident to have happened in Australian aviation history.
-A Qantas plane filled with smoke was forced to land at Brisbane Airport after the Pilot declared an emergency to the crew and Air Traffic Control
-As passengers were disembarking from a Pacific Blue plane at Wellington airport, the plane was seen to be blowing away from the airbridge. It was 3 months before any details about this were released to the public.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/travel/570649
http://www.stuff.co.nz/travel/570649www.fearlessflight.com reports that the chances of dying in a plane crash are still 1 in 11 million, although the media would like you to think otherwise. But of course this website is trying to cure the fear of flying, so I suspect they’re hardly going to tell you otherwise.
Coppola, M discusses the recent news of plane crashes in his blog ‘Mark Coppola’s Take on the News: of Plane Crashes and Octoplets’, He states that they are perfectly natural occurrences, and that people seem to be more affected when there is news of a plane crash, to when there is news of a murder or traffic accident. He claims that because there is a lot of pain felt by so many people in one incident, we are more likely to concentrate on this.
There are many unanswered questions, as most of these crashes are still unresolved, I can only report on the current facts. We can only hope that these ARE just coincidences, and that there isn’t some bigger conspiracy. Faulty parts? Geese? Perhaps these weather changes are all a part of global warming catching up with us? We can only wait for the official reports. In the mean time I’m sure the airlines would like us to keep booking holidays… hypocritical anyone?
