American Airlines Flight 191
You would think that nothing more could be written about Flight 191, one of the most tragic and preventable accidents in the history of aviation, but like too many front-page news stories, there is an untold fact that contradicts the published ones.
My comment is very personal. I used that flight on a regular basis to commute from our Chicago to Santa Monica offices. A year before the Flight 191 tragedy I was on that same afternoon flight when its left engine failed on takeoff. The captain shut it down, reversed the other engines and we came to a stop with the cabin full of exhaust fumes and the flight attendants literally hugging one another in the aisles. The captain announced, with typical nonchalance, that we had a problem with a tire and needed to return to the gate.
The cause of the flight that killed almost two hundred people was the separation of its left engine from the wing about three thousand feet down a twelve-thousand-foot runway. I still have nightmares—seriously, not literally—trying to understand why the pilot of this disastrous crash did not do what the pilot of my flight did.
Challenger Disaster
Nobody tells you that NASA removed six thousand pounds of metal from the inside of its fuel tank, the same tank which came apart at the point of maximum compression. Reducing weight for more payload was the goal, but the cost of doing so was deadly.
Turbulence
Most people, including many pilots, think that wind movement causes bumpy rides for airline flights. A more accurate analysis indicates that at least half of it is caused by different air densities. The wings ride on air, and like a bicycle traveling over sand, then concrete, then grass, bumps occur. The density of air can change in very short distances—a cloud, for example. You will always get a thump going in, and out.