Since the pioneering flights of the Wright brothers, the history of aviation has been littered with mechanical and systemic failure, with bad communication and the misjudgment of pilots. Yet out of these setbacks and tragedies has emerged an industry with a solid record of endeavour and technological innovation. It will be of little comfort to the grieving relatives of Ethiopian Airlines flight 302 to know that air travel is statistically safer than that by car, motorcycle or train. The fact remains that the Boeing 737, first conceived in 1964 and taken into service in 1968, has become one of the airborne workhorses of our age. When things go wrong, such as with the 1988 Aloha Airlines flight in which a large part of a Boeing…

Source: The Times March 12, 2019 00:00 UTC