The Airline Industry

Remember the TWA800 airline disaster from 1996? It was a commercial flight that blew up over the Atlantic Ocean, just a quarter-hour out of JFK airport, killing everybody on board.

Let it be known that, in the aftermath of that disaster, the Airline Industry has maintained the very real potential to actually kill hundreds, maybe thousands, more civilians as a direct result of their continued negligence.

Following diligent Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) investigations, it was determined that the cause for the explosion/crash was an electrical short circuit which ignited gasoline vapors in one of the plane's major fuel tanks.

To combat the accident happening again, the FAA has spent the past 12 years having to fight over the issue with the Airline industry, first strongly recommending, and - more recently - having to ORDER the industry to retrofit a new safety device to the fuel tanks of up to 55% of all commercial planes currently in use.

The industry - complaining about 'cost issues' in today's marketplace (apparently, each plane would cost $90k - $300k) - has so far been surprisingly successful in resisting the necessity. Its latest delay tactic with the FAA - and here's another shit-gripper folks - is that it is negotiating to be permitted to take another NINE years to carry out the necessary work!

For those poor at math amongst us, that means it could take a mind-boggling and staggeringly immoral 21 years from the date of the crash to fix a very important recognised safety issue on many of the planes we happily board each and every day of the week.

For us at IGMS, three things spring to mind here.

One, this stinks - and I mean REEKS - of more lobbyist interference.

Two, it seems that insurance against a class action lawsuit - let's suggest "negligence leading to murder" shall we? - must be less costly than actually carrying out the work.

and three, if the officials at the FAA actually HAD any hairy danglers at all - or even serious influence - they would simply ground each and every plane until the work had been carried out. You can bet your sweet derrière that the companies would get the work done then!

Just a thought for everyone as they board their next flight. Happy traveling!