The World's Riskiest Flight
07-23-2007, 11:50 AM
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The World's Riskiest Flight
By Justin Heckert
I always dream we're going down. That there's a cabin fire, or the engines are constricted by serpentine smoke. Or that the wings have snapped, the doors have blown in, and the oxygen masks are wilting from the overhead panels. Yet I'm not afraid of flying. Just ghastly enthralled with the accidents that happen up there. I've read transcripts from dozens of flight recorders, which is how, last year, I happened upon the grave discovery that five planes bearing the same flight number -- 191 -- have fallen out of the sky: In 1967, a NASA X-15 test flight cleared 266,000 feet, inverted, descended at Mach 3.93, and broke into crumbs over California; in 1972, a Prinair propeller plane veered left on landing near Ponce, Puerto Rico, and rammed a utility pole; in May 1979, an American Airlines DC-10 rolled out from O'Hare loaded with 271 people and dropped an engine as it climbed, leaving a skein of hydraulic fluid as if in goodbye; in 1985, the executive team responsible for the IBM PC went down in a Delta bird thanks to wind shear over Dallas; and last year, a Comair jet took off down the wrong runway in Kentucky. This type of information will not abate my nightmares, nor may it be useful to anyone else who flies. But it will keep me off the JetBlue flight that goes to Vegas from JFK, and the Continental one that goes from Miami to Houston, and not that I'll be spending any time in Kaohsiung, but if I do, I sure won't be leaving on the China Airlines flight from Taipei to get there. Because while I'm not afraid of flying, I am scared as hell by coincidence.
http://www.esquire.com/features/flight191
I always dream we're going down. That there's a cabin fire, or the engines are constricted by serpentine smoke. Or that the wings have snapped, the doors have blown in, and the oxygen masks are wilting from the overhead panels. Yet I'm not afraid of flying. Just ghastly enthralled with the accidents that happen up there. I've read transcripts from dozens of flight recorders, which is how, last year, I happened upon the grave discovery that five planes bearing the same flight number -- 191 -- have fallen out of the sky: In 1967, a NASA X-15 test flight cleared 266,000 feet, inverted, descended at Mach 3.93, and broke into crumbs over California; in 1972, a Prinair propeller plane veered left on landing near Ponce, Puerto Rico, and rammed a utility pole; in May 1979, an American Airlines DC-10 rolled out from O'Hare loaded with 271 people and dropped an engine as it climbed, leaving a skein of hydraulic fluid as if in goodbye; in 1985, the executive team responsible for the IBM PC went down in a Delta bird thanks to wind shear over Dallas; and last year, a Comair jet took off down the wrong runway in Kentucky. This type of information will not abate my nightmares, nor may it be useful to anyone else who flies. But it will keep me off the JetBlue flight that goes to Vegas from JFK, and the Continental one that goes from Miami to Houston, and not that I'll be spending any time in Kaohsiung, but if I do, I sure won't be leaving on the China Airlines flight from Taipei to get there. Because while I'm not afraid of flying, I am scared as hell by coincidence.
http://www.esquire.com/features/flight191
Last edited by JMT21; 07-23-2007 at 12:22 PM.
07-23-2007, 01:43 PM
#3
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Mar 2007
Position: RC-3 Seabee. Skipper of the A21 cutter.
Posts: 897
Originally Posted by jedinein
The most dangerous flight of all is when there are THREE CFIs on board.
Most dangerous flight is being a passenger with me in a 152 on a hot day after destroying a plate Mexican food.
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