AFter the USA crash caused by snow.....we now have a plane disappear due to lightening.

Not only that we have had planes drop to the ground with no power on several occasions - especially when coming into land or take off.

Is it me ? or did planes fly for most of my life without dropping out of the sky because of the weather ? or was that just a dream.

It is now a big risk to board a plane in many parts of the world because these weather conditions are fairly common.

Either that - or these Electrical Failures are symptomatic of poor maintenance - or more bizarre reasons such as......

I always go back to the FIVE YEARS by David Bowie inspiration ( see Wikipedia ) in the last 12 months when these things happen.

We are living in strange times.

Poor maintenance due to diminishing returns as regards profits, given the cost of aviation fuel, insurance and higher charges at airports?

It's all about cutting corners so that the profits are much, much bigger.

Disgusting if true.

It is not a big risk to take a plane. Accident figures are and always have been minute in comparison with road accident figures.

The will always be air accidents due to weather conditions.

what are these "more bizarre reasons of which you speak?

Er...hang on, they haven't found the plane yet so it is pure speculation that it was bought down by a lightning strike. Anyway modern aircraft can be struck by lightning without major trauma (except scaring passengers) and are designed so that their electrical equipment and fuel tanks are protected from strikes. Pilots however avoid flying into stormy areas as a matter of course. However if the pilots unwittingly flew through a Cumulonimbus storm cloud then the aircraft could literally be torn to pieces by the turbulence.

They will hopefully get to the bottom of this when they recover the black boxes. My thoughts go out to the families of those on board.

david wrote:
It is not a big risk to take a plane. Accident figures are and always have been minute in comparison with road accident figures.

That's what airlines and aerospace companies would like you to think, but their statistics are somewhat misleading. They will always use deaths per kilometer, which suits a form of travel which is far faster and covers far more miles per journey than any other way of getting around. It is meaningless in terms of risk assessment

If you use more sensible criteria to assess risk, flying is not as safe as you think. As a flight phobic, I spend far too much time than is good for me researching these things.
www.numberwatch.co.uk/risks_of_travel.htm

It is still the safest way of travel except maybe for large cruise ships. It's just that nearly everyone dies that causes so much grief. The greatest thing that reassures me in a plane..the pilot wants to get there as well !

But maintenance and profits are the danger. Qantas is a great example and I now avoid them. They started out-sourcing their maintenance a few years ago in an effort to break unions..the usual tired old claptrap.

And then it was discovered some engineers either had no qualifications or were sub-standard. The result..Qantas has had some bad near misses since.

But whenever I book my trips from Syd to Bangkok or London I never know until the day if it's Qantas or BA flight..they switch flights between them.

However the trolley dollies on Qantas are bitchier and swish a lot more.

I can totally understand why people are afraid of flying. Stuck in a tube for hours close together at 40,000 feet. How can a 300 tonne piece of metal possibly fly?

It IS still safe to fly, the statistics show this. How many people die in car accidents every day? We only feel safer in cars because we are in control. The loss of a large passenger aircraft has always been big news and so the perception that flying is unsafe is magnified.

In this latest incidence, one of the questions I would ask is why was an aircraft at cruising height flying through a storm - normally the flight crew would divert around it.

Many planes fly through storms - lightening - snow - but recently planes seem unable to stay in the air.

Even birds can bring down major airliners onto the Hudson River.....

There was the Heathrow plane that did not make the runway having suddenly lost power.....

There seems to be alot of electrical malfunctioning going on......

I have spoken to others and they have seen PCs doing strange things - air conditioning switching off - and many other electrical issues in the last few weeks.

I have read about magnetic theories and other theories on conspiracy sites but nothing really explains why all these things are happening.

Maintenance of planes is meant to be better than ever because they want to keep their jobs - as well as the human element. Perhaps components are not as well made ( cheaper materials ? ) but why are we seeing an increase in these incidents - luckily in many of the cases the passengers have walked away but there have been more of these things in the last 12 months than I can ever remember.

I dont think it is safe to fly anymore - and have decided not to fly anywhere in the foreseeable future.
Stats dont give the full picture as far as I can see. There are millions more cars moving each day - hence it is bound to be more dangerous.....trains are on tracks so rarely crash unless de-railed or human signal error. Planes are in great danger all the time.

BR wrote:
Many planes fly through storms - lightening - snow - but recently planes seem unable to stay in the air.

Even birds can bring down major airliners onto the Hudson River.....

There was the Heathrow plane that did not make the runway having suddenly lost power.....

There seems to be alot of electrical malfunctioning going on......

I have spoken to others and they have seen PCs doing strange things - air conditioning switching off - and many other electrical issues in the last few weeks.

I have read about magnetic theories and other theories on conspiracy sites but nothing really explains why all these things are happening.

Maintenance of planes is meant to be better than ever because they want to keep their jobs - as well as the human element. Perhaps components are not as well made ( cheaper materials ? ) but why are we seeing an increase in these incidents - luckily in many of the cases the passengers have walked away but there have been more of these things in the last 12 months than I can ever remember.

I dont think it is safe to fly anymore - and have decided not to fly anywhere in the foreseeable future.
Stats dont give the full picture as far as I can see. There are millions more cars moving each day - hence it is bound to be more dangerous.....trains are on tracks so rarely crash unless de-railed or human signal error. Planes are in great danger all the time.

Dude, you worry too much.