An article in the Washington Post echoes what many Americans have been thinking about the state of air travel these days. Were there always so many near-misses on the tarmac? Were there always such hostile passengers attacking airline crews? WaPo tries to break it down:
For months now, headlines have delivered a relentless parade of tough news for nervous fliers: a runway near miss between two planes here, a midflight battery fire there, severe turbulence that projects passengers out of their seats, a 1,400-foot plunge toward the Pacific Ocean, yet another attack on a flight attendant. And then close call after close call on the tarmac.
As observers respond with bafflement — “Another one? Didn’t this just happen?” — the Federal Aviation Administration is taking note. Air travel experts convened Wednesday in Northern Virginia to “examine and address recent safety concerns” as part of a broader review. Several members of the panel pointed to turnover of the industry’s labor force as a potential safety risk.
. . .
So far this year, the National Transportation Safety Board has opened investigations into six of the close-call incidents, in New York City; Honolulu; Austin; Sarasota, Fla.; Burbank, Calif.; and Boston. The agency has issued preliminary reports in three of those cases; it did not issue any reports for incursions that occurred in 2022 and only issued one involving commercial aviation in 2021.
Read the rest of the story here.