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I wrote this in 2013, as a follow-up to an earlier piece on the Sea King accident on the Indonesian island of Nias in 2005.  But it’s really more general in its application to air safety, human error, and its consequences in this particular field of endeavour.   And it asks the question: “Why don’t we all drive Volvos?” Whenever something hugely, catastrophically bad happens, particularly when resulting in multiple deaths and injuries, it is normal for people to assume that s

In November 2010 a Qantas Boeing 747, enroute from Hong Kong to Melbourne, experienced an explosion of an oxygen cylinder.  Qantas’ performance before, during and after the incident was exemplary at all times, but the media was never going to pass up the opportunity for some aero-sensationalism.  Here were some thoughts of my younger self about this circus at the time – specifically, the difference between the way a pilot or engineer might describe events, and how the media p