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DC-10s are broken because they can't fly with two engines! And they're pretty hard to keep right side up. The pitch is way too sensitive... Damn things always were junk.

Spoken like a true 'hit it with a bigger hammer' mentality if I've ever heard it. Stay away from my servers, stay away from my internal organs, and stick to the ditches of Windows-workstation-maintenance where you belong.

People like you cause airliner crashes, Warships to become impotent, and ATC to shutdown for 3 hours endangering millions.

There are those who belong in enterprise, and there are those who do not. Know which you are, those on the other side of the tracks sure as hell do.

I think I found an link talking about the 2005 Boeing 777 incident. http://www.airlinesafety.com/faq/777DataFailure.htm Tim S

Target a plane, in flight, from another plane. Dead, along with his family, no evidence. Bafflement and panic cited as causes.

When you sit in the back, it takes longer to get off of the plane because you have to wait for all the bozos in front of you to fumble for their personal belongings. I'd say that a conservative estimate is an average of 5 extra minutes. So before your first expected crash, you'd waste 5 * 7,000,000 minutes, or 66 solid years waiting at the back of planes. So to save each life, you're essentially using up an entire lifetime standing hunched over watching old codgers wrestle with their suitcases. (It's actually much worse than that, because only a fraction of fatal crashes even have a difference in outcome between the front and the back. A lot of times, everybody dies and sitting in the back doesn't help anyway.)

http://airlinesafety.com/faq/faq8.htm

A history of aviation-related fire fatalities. One other interesting note is at least some planes used to have CO2 systems built-in. They would depressurize the plane and release CO2. Some early systems left out the depressurization step and as a result asphyxiated the crew when the plane began its descent (CO2 is heavier than air). It seems like a bit of a risky strategy with everyone breathing through oxygen hoses, but at that point I guess you just hope the ceiling isn't on fire. At least then the pilots can see.

As another (not verified) note: Standard airline BCF cabin-stowed extinguishers discharge for 13 secs. The statutory number carried on a 200-300 seat jet is five.

Doesn't sound like very good fire coverage to me.

Thank you! I was going for a well known case (and trying to document it) but I appreciate the criticism. Some other examples might be comparing JetBlue or SkyWest and United Airlines and other unionized airlines. Albeit there are other obstacles to running an airline business, unions are only one. But these non-unionized airlines are showing consistent profit while their unionized competitors aren't seeing profit even with massive government support (similar non audio link here.)

I might also mention various problems with teachers unions. But that's an entirely different story.

I think most competitive industries that have unions display these tendencies. A government enforced monopoly always seems to be a bad deal for everyone, not just unions. Besides, the main point of my post was not that unions are bad, merely that Carnegie was not an imbecile.

Mountains?

The DC3 era is over. 15,000 feet is about the point at which loss of pressure starts to cause a problem. Modern jet airliners typically cruise at 35,000 feet +/- a few thousand.

Very few air routes go directly over mountains 15,000+ feet tall.

The reason the plane in Greece hit a mountain was it ran out of fuel.

Most incidents where a plane hits a mountain are during takeoff or landing, far below the 15,000 ft threshold - or they are prop / turboprop planes that fly low enough that they don't have to rely on cabin pressurization to maintain consciousness of the pilot.

Sec. 121.333 of the FAA rules requires that the co-pilot put on the oxygen mask above 25,000 feet if the pilot leaves the controls (and vice versa).

For some more insights, see this editorial:

http://www.airlinesafety.com/editorials/737CrashIn Greece.htm