Clear Skies: The Revolutionary Change in Airplane Safety

It’s May of 1996. About 100 passengers board a plane in Miami for a short flight to Atlanta. They never make it.

Only about two months later, a flight leaves New York’s JFK airport bound for Rome. Within half an hour, it’s a fireball — the remains scattered in the waters off of Long Island. It is, at the time, the second deadliest plane accident in American history. ⁱ

Two fatal crashes, two months apart.

To state the obvious: They are utterly heartbreaking tragedies.

To state the less-than-obvious: They are the beginning of the story of how American air travel…

… got really, really safe.

[OPENING SEQUENCE]

If you’re nervous getting on an airplane … you’re not alone. Polls have shown as many as 55 percent of Americans feel uneasy about flying.ⁱⁱ

And if you’re one of them, chances are at some point someone’s told you it’s actually safer to fly on a plane than to get in a car.

Which is trueⁱⁱⁱ — but probably misses the point. After all, there’s such a thing as a minor car accident. Minor plane crash? Not so much.

But here’s something that really should put your mind at ease: Over the past few decades, America has virtually eliminated plane crashes.

In the 1990s, there were 931 deaths on American air carriers.^iv In 1996 — the year of those two accidents we mentioned earlier — the New York Times warned that air travel was getting so dangerous that, if the trend continued, passenger jets could be crashing once a week by 2010.^v

Which would’ve meant unspeakable terror … and probably a lot more people taking the bus.

But here’s what’s amazing … it never happened. In the entire decade of the 2010s – the number of American commercial flights that crashed … was 0. ^vi

So, what happened? How did we go, in 25 years, from a world where we all feared falling out of the sky … to a world where our biggest worry about flying is being on a plane with someone’s emotional support peacock? ^vii

Obviously, better technology helped. But a big part of the story was a revolution in the way the airlines handled safety issues.

In the old days, employees who made a mistake or witnessed something go wrong … had a big incentive to keep their mouths shut. They didn’t want to lose their jobs or face potential legal liability. In fact, one of the mechanics who worked on that flight that went down on the way to Atlanta … is still on the FBI’s most wanted list. ^viii

But rather than crack down even harder, the airlines solved the problem by … letting people off the hook. Kinda.

Here’s what happened: The airlines, their employees, and the FAA developed a new system — one in which the emphasis was on sharing as much data as possible. And one of the ways they did that was by holding employees harmless for innocent mistakes as long as they were forthcoming with information about what had happened.

The result: the elimination of a lot of very basic — but potentially catastrophic — errors. They created safeguards like having both pilots verbally confirm altitude changes. Or installing better signs to keep planes from getting on the wrong runway. That may not sound like much, but these kinds of minor changes can make a huge difference.

You may remember, for instance, the story of the German pilot who committed suicide by crashing into the Alps in 2015. That crash only happened because he had locked his co-pilot out of the cabin during a bathroom break. Under American rules, however, this scenario couldn’t happen; two people have to be in the cockpit at all times.^ix

The track record here is pretty clear: Over the years, as the number of issues that have been reported has increased, the number of actual accidents has plummeted.^x Because getting the little things right … often leads to getting the big things right.

Could this success be replicated in other fields? That’s the hope.

There’s currently an effort to introduce the same kinds of reforms to health care, which … could use it. It’s estimated that avoidable mistakes in hospitals lead to a quarter-million deaths a year. In fact, a 2016 report from Johns Hopkins estimated that only heart disease and cancer kill more Americans.^xi

And there’s already evidence to suggest these kinds of initiatives could work. One study found that the simple use of a checklist during surgeries cut infection rates from 4 percent of cases to 0 — saving 1,500 lives and nearly $200 million.^xii Making sure everyone in an operating room knows each other’s name — which makes them more likely to speak up — has been shown to make the average number of complications and deaths drop by 35 percent.^xiii

From the airport to the OR, the principle is the same: Seemingly small changes can have huge consequences for our safety. Which will allow us all to rest a little easier — and focus on other pressing problems…

Like how these [*#%^] peacocks got on this [*$^@] plane.