Don’t land there!
Those who know me well know that I’ve had a history of anxious flying. I would never let it get in my way of where I needed to go but at the same time it’s not completely ignorable. Luckily for myself I’ve been able to overcome the anxiousness over the last year… flying is of no ordeal for me, yet when it comes to commercial flying I follow the news and can consider me a statistic master.
Leading into the point, today two separate incidents were reported at Newark’s Liberty Airport. The first incident being a Lufthansa 747 clipping a stationary Continental 757, which resulted in a damaged wing on the Lufthansa airplane. Although it shouldn’t have occurred at all it’s still the best of all accidents – no one injured.
On a similar note, the other incident actually occurred Saturday night which also involved a Continental 757 but was a bit more severe in nature; the plane landed on the taxi-way rather than the runway. How the hell do you land a plane on a taxi-way rather than the runway?!?!?! You have two pilots in the airplane a pilot and a co-pilot, yet neither realized they weren’t landing on the runway?
These are the type of incidents that got me anxious of flying in the first place. According to FAA statistics, over the last 31 years there have only been eight incidences where a plane has landed on the wrong runway – ironically I don’t think this incident falls in that category because theoretically it didn’t land on a *runway*.
While I was focusing in on the blame of the flight crew, I read that one of the passengers made the following statement:
“To be honest, it’s a little bit scary. I know they’re trained to know what they’re doing, but they’re human. They’re going to make mistakes,”
This was definitely a major blunder by the flight crew – no doubt about that. But I have to ask myself, whether the incident should end up costing the flight crew their career. This is where I have to think about the passenger’s quote. We are human and we all make mistakes, we live through most and some are forgivable, but regardless of the circumstances there is one thing we should always do and that is learn from them – even if it’s other’s mistakes. That being said, I for one would fly with these pilots but only if they are completely cooperative in the investigation and let others learn from the circumstances; plus living through this ordeal I would doubt they would ever allow it to repeat itself.
