After a British Airways 777 jet avoided demolishing the perimeter fence, ploughed the grass and kissed the tarmac at London Heathrow airport on Thursday, I was reminded again of the dangers of flying. Of course, statistically flying is one of the safest means of transport. Only about 750 people were killed in an accident related to flying in 2007. Worldwide that is. And then, even most of the accidents take place in regions were flying is obviously less safe. Still, do you prefer overshooting a soaking wet runway in Sao Paulo or two flamed out engines in London? Flying is safe, as long as you are not on that plane that has a curse on it.

I remember clearly that one flight I made from Madrid to Brussels. I was sitting next to an Italian girl, close to the aisle of course, and I remember how the plane bounced up and down shortly after take off. My hands were trying to strangle the armrests. She was pretty scared too, but I won the contest by far. Of the 24 flights I made, I only remember two or three of them to be pleasant to me. Most of the others were to some degree stressful. I love flying, I hate it. I love it for the atmosphere one’s in, for being able to move very quickly from one place to another. When I get off the plane, I feel like a king. I hate it because there is not enough room, one is locked inside of a pressurised tube and it is potentially dangerous.

Flying is one of the 7 technical world wonders. Take a tube of metal, put some electronics inside, equip it with enormous engines and it can cross the ocean. Arrange some air traffic controllers, radar installations and radio equipment… airport facilities, emergency services, baggage handlers… trained staff… and one can service the public. Considering our origins, human being are not supposed to fly. If we were, we would have had wings. We are smart creatures, supposed to think of inventions. Flying appealed to us, so we developed it to what it is today. In order to avoid mishaps in a world full of variables we invented rules and regulations. I guess thanks to that it is so safe.

It is not always safe. There are near misses, incidents and accidents. Up in the sky at a height of 10 km, cruising with a speed of 800 km/h, rushing through frozen air one is pretty vulnerable. Take the crash that took place over Überlingen (Germany) some years ago, where a DHL 757 collided with a Russian Tupolev, and where according to eye reports burning wreckage came down after seeing a bright flash in the sky. Now, keep that image in your mind, rewind it, and imagine your loved ones being slammed into a 757 (or v.v.). Using a camera that records milliseconds, one probably sees bodies being slammed forward, bending over their safety belts, damaging intestines for life. In the next shot ones sees body being either sliced by the safety belt or being slammed into the chair in front of them. The next frame depicts debris flying around and cutting people in the face, followed by a huge flame burning and suffocating life. Even if some of these things do not happen, the bodies would be exposed to ice cold temperatures and drop from the sky to either die in the air or slam into the ground.

I know that we do not want to think about these things. You might even find it repulsive. In case of the British Airways (call sign: speedbird) 777, where both engines were in idle position at least, the plane starts to drop the rear due to the loss of airspeed. Pilots try to correct this by lowering the nose, which increases the rate of descent. That is the reason why it did not make it all the way to the tarmac. In itself it was a job well done. Suppose one is unable to avoid a stall (for whatever reasons) then passengers will have a backward ride (flight) into the ground. Imagine sitting in this plane… there is no way you can control the things that happen around you. One does not know what the pilots know, one cannot intervene. You are not having any control of that flight, of your life, of the decision whether you live on or not. Even though flying is very safe compared to other means of transport, and it is tightly regulated to enhance our safety, when we board a plane it might be the last place time we have been on earth alive. How does one come to terms with that?

PS: I recommend you to read this article by the Times. It is well written and explains a lot about aviation. Just one thing: they consider a pilot error to be “highly unlikely”. I consider this to be very premature. Many aircraft accidents are (partly) due to pilot error, excluding this option seems rather… patriotic in this case?