This is sort out in left field for my blog, but it's something that I've been thinking about for awhile. After reading this post, you may well have a little food for thought. And the food could even be from McDonald's. That's where I ate tonight, and notice that I'm still here, fully coherent. Well, mostly coherent. As coherent as I get. Coherent-ish?
Anyway, I'll bet that not many people think of things like this, but remember that I'm not like regular people. Things in my world are a bit...different. But that's what keeps things fun around here. What's going to happen next? You never know...
Before I jump into the meat of this post, let me say a few things. (Yes, there's meat here on the Planet, and it meets all health and manufacturing standards.) This post is about air travel, something I haven't done since May 2008 when I stepped off of a Southwest Airlines 737 at Burbank Airport. At the rate I'm going, the 2010s may be the third decade of my life during which I never flew anywhere. (The '50s and the '70s are the other two.) I'd better come up with a trip of some kind if I want to be consistent. There's only one more year left of this decade.
Occasionally, my mind wanders and some pretty random things sneak into it. Here's one and it's the subject of this post. Most of us can remember when it was fairly common to pick up a newspaper or turn on the news and learn that yet another airliner fell from the sky either because of weather, colliding with another plane, mechanical failure, or who knows what. Up to several hundred people lost their lives as a result, as well as neighborhoods decimated as the aircraft or what was left of it rained down. Horrible images filled our TV screens and pages of photos filled the papers.
Then came 9/11. Four planes were hijacked by pilots whose sole intent was to crash the planes and kill everyone aboard along with taking out a major building. Both 110-story towers of the World Trade Center in New York City were lost, and another plane crashed into the side of the Pentagon. One other was headed to an still-unknown destination, but passengers aboard that plane managed to take over and stop the suspected terrorists from reaching their intended target. That plane was brought down in a field in Pennsylvania. Everyone aboard was lost, but the passengers were given a posthumous honor for thwarting the loss of another target.
Later that day, all American planes were grounded until further notice. No flights could be made until things were sorted out. Eventually, a new government agency was created to assure the safety of people flying to their destinations. Known simply as "the TSA," it actually stands for the Transportation Security Administration. Boarding planes went from a simple pass through a metal detector to a more thorough screening of both passengers and luggage. Tight restrictions were put into place as to what could be packed into checked luggage as well as what can be brought aboard the plane by passengers.
Now that I've told you a bunch of stuff that you probably already know, let me get into what popped into my mind back in the fourth paragraph. All of those air disasters I mentioned in the '70s, '80s and '90s—why are there fewer air disasters in the U.S. today? Don't get me wrong; I'm plenty thankful for that. But it does makes me wonder...now that the TSA has stepped up screening passengers, could things that passengers used to bring aboard or pack into their checked luggage have contributed to bringing down some of those planes over the years? You have to wonder if, for example, an aerosol can of hairspray exploded inside someone's suitcase, ignited that bag, causing a fire that spread, burning wires or destroyed mechanical parts or systems that rendered the aircraft uncontrollable. Few, if any, were alive and able to tell the tale.
And yet, we still read about foreign airlines whose planes go down in other parts of the world.
Lots of questions, and there's room for a discussion or two. To me, increased scrutiny on the part of the TSA at the same time as a decrease in disasters involving large jetliners seems like more than just a coincidence. This is definitely something to think about—and be thankful for.
No comments:
Post a Comment