Lost Malaysian Aircraft

What is this subject doing in our travel blog?

Well, the current (10 March) search for the lost Malaysian Airlines flight MH307 brings our recent travels back into sharp focus.

In January 2014 we flew by Malaysian from Adelaide to KL and from there to Ho Chi Minh City, and later returned from Manila to KL and thence to Adelaide. We covered the same route north east from KL as the ill-fated MH307 flight and although we were in a different aircraft, it’s very hard not to think about how fortunate we were to have had safe flights.

Air travel is one of the safest forms of travel yet devised but when things do go wrong they do it in a big and sad way. But modern aircraft, according to aviation experts, do not, and cannot, just fall out of the sky, they are so strong that even the worst weather conditions won’t break their structure.

Structural testing is very extensive, check out this Airbus Industries test strategy, and this wing test video on the Boring 777 (the same aircraft type as the lost Malaysian airplane).

Planes do crash of course although very few have ever been due to major structural failure (see here). Mostly they are due to human error either in maintenance or piloting, and occasionally sabotage.

So it’s a very sad day for the passengers, crew and relatives of all those involved in this tragedy and it’s made me think long and hard about our good fortune.