In the last few days, there have been a lot of airliner incidents reported in the media.  Southwest Airlines had one 737 experience decompression after a hole developed in a fuselage of a 737-300.  Another Southwest Airlines 737 diverted due to flight crew smelling smoke in the cabin.  To make matters worse, during inspections of 737-300s, Southwest discovered two more aircraft with sub-surface cracking in their fuselsages.  An American Airlines flight diverted after a few passengers and flight crew became dizzy and another AA aircraft, a 767, had to return to the airport after taking off because of a suspected tail strike on take-off.  A regional jet flew into a flock of birds and suffered major damage to its nose cone and body. 

It seems like there have been several other incidents over the past few weeks as well but are things suddenly unsafe?  No, not really.  I just named 4 flights out of several thousands that have taken place over the past few days.  Statistically speaking, they are insignificant.   One thing that drives reporting of these events is whether or not it is a slow news day.  Over the past few days, we’ve had little news to block out less significant reports related to airliners.   Japan and its disaster is settling down in the news and Libya news has settled a fair bit as well.  When things are quiet, airliner incidents get reported and the more prominent the airline is, the more its incidents get reported as well.

It’s safe, go fly.

Filed under: Airline News by ajax