The airliners.net picture of the day box which I recently added to the sidebar has this shot as today’s picture of the day. What a gorgeous picture. It might show some of the non-plane-enthusiast people reading this just what the attraction is. ;) The 747 is my favourite plane.
I’m re-reading Black Box at the moment and something that I always find interesting is a lot of plane crashes have between 1-10 people who survive when nobody else does. One such accident was the worst single plane accident ever – JAL 123 – which involved a special version of the Boeing 747 that was made specifically for Japan’s short haul flights between airports. It carried 524 people – a normal 747 usually carries less than 417 passengers. The plane struck Mount Fuji and impacted the mountain, destroying 3,000 trees, and yet 4 people survived it. One of them was an off duty JAL stewardess who was sitting right at the back of the plane.
Another amazing story of survival was – AA 965 – where four people and a dog in the cargo compartment survived after the plane impacted with a mountain near Cali in Columbia. The dog was re-named “Milagro” for miracle.
A very old story of survival was the Stinson crash in 1937. Three men survived but one died while walking to get help.
Now to change topic slightly and most of these links are to PDF files so don’t worry when your computer does that stop and think thing ;) – If you think flight attendants are brainless drink servers, you might want to read this but be warned it is a slightly graphic tale. You can also read this – training does save lives. And finally, before you travel anywhere again, this article tells you why you should NEVER EVER ignore the safety demonstration.