Staff Writer
An
American Airlines flight leaving for Dallas experienced difficulties as the
walls of the plane started to split open.
A Boeing 757 was leaving San Francisco when passengers began to notice
strange sounds coming from the plane. The
cabin walls then broke open and exposed insulation. Many distressed passengers felt changes in
the air pressure and expressed fear. One
man posted messages on Facebook about his fear during the flight and told his
friends to let his wife know about what was going on. The captain initially told the worried
passengers that they would continue through to Dallas. However, he felt the need to make an
emergency landing in San Francisco once he personally saw the breaks in the
plane. No one was hurt, but the event
raises questions about the age and safety of planes.
The
average age of an American Airlines Boeing 757 is 18.5 years. However, the average age of the American
Airlines Airbus A321 is 0.3 years. This
figure begins to make sense when you understand what constitutes the lifespan
of an airplane. When a plane is
pressurized, its various parts, including the fuselage and wings, are stressed. A flight is pressurized more often on shorter
flights, which is why planes designed for shorter travel such as the Airbus
have such short lifespans. This means
that there are Boeings that are 30 years old and some planes that are scrapped
within a year of being produced.
The
problems experienced during the Dallas flight may be scary to some, but flying
is one of the safest ways to travel. Information
from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the National
Transportation Safety Board from 2008 shows that there were 20 accidents on
U.S. Airlines versus over 5 million automobile accidents in the same year. The National Safety Council estimated that a
human’s chance of dying from a car crash during his or her lifetime is one in
98. On the other hand, someone’s chance
of dying due to an aviation accident is one in 7,178. So even though flying may seem frightening,
the care and safety that goes into commercial flying makes it an extremely safe
way to get around.
