Saturday, July 6, 2013

I want to hear the Airplane crash...



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...

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