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Century after first fatality, safety is in the air
Beyond ‘experimental stage,’ flying is by far the safest way to travel
 | Troops of the U.S. Army Signal Corps rush to the site of a crashed plane to recover the pilot Orville Wright and his passenger, army observer Lieutenant Thomas E. Selfridge, from the wreckage September 17, 1908, in Fort Myer, Va. |
AP file |
PHOENIX - It was called an "aeroplane," but the contraption Orville Wright piloted on Sept. 17, 1908 was hardly more than a big box kite with a motor. And unlike his famous first flight in 1903, this one was doomed.
Less than five minutes after takeoff, Wright's plane lay smashed, his passenger mortally injured, and the world got an early taste of the perils of flying. It was the first fatal airplane crash in history, according to the Flight Safety Foundation.
"The aeroplane is still far within the experimental stage," a New York Times writer lamented three days later. "The perfected machine will doubtless be different from it in everything from principle to motive power."
A hundred years later modern jets have indeed made air travel the safest way to get around. Yet, to the consternation of the airline industry, flying still generates for many the same rush of anxiety that onlookers must have felt when Wright's plane dove into the parade ground at Ft. Myer, Va.
"There's still this mystique about flying," said Ron Nielsen, a retired US Airways pilot who's found a second career counseling people who are afraid to fly. "There's a fear of being closed in, and there's a fear of dying."
It doesn't help when airlines are caught failing to follow government safety regulations, as was the case with American Airlines and Southwest Airlines earlier this year.
Anxiety levels may also rise when members of Congress accuse the Federal Aviation Administration of an inappropriately cozy relationship with the airlines it regulates. In response to reports of lapses in FAA oversight, the House passed a law in July that would force federal aviation inspectors to wait two years before taking airline jobs.
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According to a 10-year average of National Safety Council statistics from 1996 to 2005, only two people died in commercial airline crashes per 10 billion miles traveled.
That compares to a death rate of five people per 10 billion miles on passenger trains. And in cars, 81 people died for every 10 billion miles traveled.
Accidents in the air have become so rare that investigators no longer find common reasons why commercial airplanes crash, FAA spokesman Les Dorr said.
"If you try to say, what's the next common cause (of airline accidents) that we can address, the answer is there isn't one," Dorr said.
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It took a lot of work to get to this point.
Aviation has always been an intensively reactive field, with many of its safety enhancements kick-started following major aircraft accidents.
It was this way even in 1908. A few days after the first fatal crash, Wright woke from his hospital bed and asked to see his mechanic.
"I'd like to have his view on just what happened to cause our spill," he said.
The plane was circling about 100 feet above the parade grounds during a demonstration flight for the U.S. Army Signal Corps when it suddenly dropped nose first and crashed. Wright's passenger for the experimental trip, Lt. Thomas Selfridge, was killed.
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