Its not even been half the year and already there have been 5 major air crashes involving wide body jets:

1) Ethiopian airlines from Lebanon (went into a storm, lost control and plunged into the sea)
2) Afghanistan airlines (don’t know what the cause is)
3) Polish airlines (crashed on final approach in fog - afaik, NO ILS system at this airport - so the plane shouldn’t have even attempted to land in fog)
4) Libyan airlines (crashed on final approach - don’t know the cause)
5) Air India (crashed on final approach due to a steep approach angle so the front belly of the plane hit hard causing the front tires to burst - pilot tried to correct this by applying full thrust and execute a missed approach, but since he already touched down beyond the touch down point, there was not enough runway left and the plane just plunged into the 150 feet ravine below (front and both sides of the ‘table top’ runway were deep hollow valleys).

None of the crashes thus far were mechanical. All pilot error. Now with the Air India crash, investigators say one of the major faults was also with the airport ILS not working...NOT WORKING??!! and that too in a table top runway!

Mechanical errors shouldn’t cause fatal crash like back then that much due to strict regulations including better construction/maintenance and redundant aircraft fail-safe systems.

RIP to all the victims!

We are living in very terrible times! Jesus is the answer! :)

May be the second coming of Jesus is getting even closer, so many plane crashes, natural disasters.
So many earthquakes recorded this year compared to any time in history.

2012 people.......2012.....enjoy it while you can ;)

Dec 21st 2012? Hehe…

Nevertheless, I am a low time student pilot and I enjoy flying. It would take about 31000 jets with around 200 passengers to crash and kill all passengers to equal the number of people killed in car accidents each year.

Sure more people drive than fly, but then consider that passenger-mile or passenger-hour basis, flying is still a lot safer...especially in developed economies like US, Japan, UK, etc.

Btw I am a Christian, but I seriously doubt Jesus has anything to do with the crashes. People have been saying for the past 2000 years ‘He is coming He is coming’...sure he may come but we can’t predict.

I Bet He is already there, but ignored ...................

;JOOP!

News travels faster these days than in Biblical times - keep that in mind...plane crashes aren’t part of biblical prophecy anyway, natural disasters, political events, and wars are.

I suppose one could try and draw connections between plane crashes and increasing severity of natural phenomena..dunno, that’s the “Lost"(tv show) allegory…

Most air traffic control systems around the world are antiquated and need replacing - including the U.S. systems. Add to that the record number of flights everyday around the world, along with overworked air traffic controllers, tired pilots, and severe weather or natural events like the Icelandic volcano, you’re sure to see an increase in crashes. Tired pilots might be the biggest problem - you can’t keep flight crews on 12 to 14 hour shifts with little sleep in between and not get consequences.

Also, notice that the crashes were all outside the U.S. What are the chances of enforcing safety regulations for airlines in Ethiopia? Afghanistan? Libya? These are third-world countries.

Actually, I like to make a correction…

The Indian civil aviation minister said the ILS (localizer/glideslope) was working fine..

The pilot definitely approached too far beyond the normal touchdown point, and that too at a very steep angle, causing the tire to burst and for the plane to lose control.

Thus, it is pilot error, but the dangerous runway location was a contributing factor.

Dave, ICAO (international body for aviation) oversees that all international aircarriers meet certain standards, and if they don’t they are placed in a block list that prohibits them from flying to US/Europe, etc.

Dubai is very strict with its quality control...India is a bit undisciplined but still better than most developing nations. Due to the rapidly growing economy, India has been having a massive surge in the # of airplanes.

Both the pilot (Serbian-British national) and co-pilot (Indian) had excellent flying experience, including this airport.

When I travelled air India back in the day, and when my friend’s dad bought duty-free liquor from the airplane, and when they went home and tried to open the bottle, they found the seal was broken and the liquor diluted with water...it seemed like the crew were enjoying alcohol...I am not saying the pilots were getting drunk, but it has happened in the past.

Black box recording revealed all communication was normal and it was simply a pilot error coupled with a bad landing strip.

While India is technologically rich compared to most developing nations (1st 6 core microprocessor was developed in Bangalore) and many anti-pollution technologies as well (even though Indian government doesn’t use it...lol, its sold to the west), the corruption and lack of system are 2 big problems.

Most of the passengers were Christian (Mangalore is a predominantly Christian city in the state of Karnataka, with a lot of catholics) and many muslims (from Kerala, where my ancestry is from...Kerala has world’s oldest Christians, like myself - Syrian Malankara Jacobite Orthodox, and muslims and jews - even though most jews went to Israel).

Hopefully, this tragic event will change the culture of the government (yeah, right).

Its not so bad when you consider there’s like 50,000 flights a day worldwide.

MoGut - 25 May 2010 11:01 AM

Its not so bad when you consider there’s like 50,000 flights a day worldwide.

On a per-mile fatality basis, commercial jet aviation is 7 times safer than driving, but then again, planes travel a lot faster than cars, so this may skew the data in favor of airplanes.

But bottom line is, flying in a well maintained airplane (good airlines like Emirates or Qantas) in good airspace by experienced pilots is a lot safer than driving.

I won’t fly Air India simply because they only require 200 hours of flying experience to be the co-pilot of a boeing 737!!!!

In US, I would need 2000 hours for the same…

Given a random occurrance of something, from time to time there are spikes in the frequency. This is completely normal.

Df.

True, but I wouldn’t rule out the effects of the Global Financial Crisis being a factor as well.

Physics and Economics abide by the same rule - What goes up, must come down.