There was a airplane crash on the runways of SFO today… about
11:30 a.m. a 777 from Asiana airlines landed short of the runway, losing its
tail, hitting hard, and after a merciful few minutes the allowing the passengers
to evacuate, caught fire… There were
307 passengers and crew aboard… 2 have died, some are in critical condition in
area hospitals, but most walked away generally ok… It is our west coast version of the miracle on the Hudson…
a survivable jet accident… We likely won’t have a Skully as a hero… but will
have Skully as a commentator. The Skully lives nearby across San Francisco Bay.
For me, and family it was disruptive… at the time of the
crash the wife and daughter were on a United Jet, on the tarmac of Vancouver
Canada about to take off for SFO… they didn’t… the flight was eventually canceled
and they are expected home tomorrow.
We could hear the sirens… it bothered the neighbor’s dogs…
mine slept through it.
I am flying to Alaska tomorrow… I heard about the “incident”
from the wife, who knew something had happened, but not what had happened… I
turned on the local news… they had photos of the plane… I called Alaska
Airlines about noon, and with the help of a wonderful customer service rep (Paula)
who had seen the alert, but didn’t know the extent of the accident changed my
outgoing flight to San Jose… at O-dark-100 in the morning… Now some 10 hours after the incident the
news is all about the delays…
Being a historian and researcher… and a traveler I did a bit
of research on aircraft and accidents and SF bay…
There have been accidents before (this would be the place
for the base drum roll….) but I don’t
think this is the time to worry much about the safety of commercial aviation… Particularly associated with SFO…
So, we need to remember that there are about 600 landings or
takeoffs at SFO everyday… 25 an hour on
average… something like 220,000 per year… With all that traffic this is not the
first accident… The South San Francisco Patch is reporting that this is the 14th
accident in the history of SFO (or Mill’s Field as it was previously known….) If you accept all listed as SFO related (one took place in Yosemite, heading to Arizona
in 1938, one in Mendocino in 1943, and two in the Pacific in the mid 1950’s, several
are the result of crazy folk taking down the plane, one took place off LA… ) If
you take all the losses associated with SFO, the airport has lost 270
passengers in 14 crashes in 75 years of commercial aviation.
If you only count the nearby flights, there are only 4 seemingly
tied directly to the airport…
In 1953 The Resolution, operated by British Commonwealth Pacific Airlines (BCPA) Flight 304/44 crashed while on approach
to SFO with a loss of 11. There is a
trail in the hills dedicated to the crash…
In 1964 a Flying Tigers cargo plane crashed into Mt San
Bruno with the loss of the crew of 3…
In 1968 a Japan Air went into the bay… with no loss of life…
Finally, there is today’s incident… a Asiana Boeing 777 with
307 passengers, with the loss of two lives…
Even the most paranoid among us should note that this is 5
deaths in the 58 years since I was born… and at least 3 were crew (they
probably wore red shirts too... (gratuitous Star Trek reference unrelated to
aircraft crashes in San Francisco before the 23rd century when Kirk
and crew will crash a Klingon bird of prey into the bay under the Golden Gate
bridge… with hump back whales aboard… ))
Tomorrow I will fly… to Seattle then to Alaska… I am not
worried… but I am avoiding SFO… it will
be crazy so I will fly from San Jose… but Wednesday expect to land at SFO on my
return… And, I don't plan on carrying any whales in my carry-on luggage...
