down to earth

This is part of a blog entry I wrote last year:

"Last Thursday August 21, 2008, a Spanish jet crashed minutes after take-off at the Madrid International Airport, killing 154 passengers and crew. About 4 days later, another plane fell from the sky. This time, a passenger plane crashed in Kyrgyzstan's capital of Bishkek, killing at least 70 people, including members of a youth basketball team. On that same day, a small plane crashed in Guatemala killing 10 people, most of whom were on a humanitarian mission. And of course yesterday, an Air Force plane crashed in Davao City. Bodies of two of the nine people on board were already recovered, the others are feared dead.

Then there were the Qantas Airways incidents, where in a span of one week, 3 of its planes made an emegency landing. And just today, barely a week after the Madrid plane crash, an Air France-KLM Airlines skidded off the runway in Montreal, Canada. And did I mention a Philippine Airlines plane also skidded off a runway in Mindanao a week ago."

And just barely a year later, another series of unfortunate events took place. June 1- an Air France plane from Rio de Janeiro to Paris crashed in the Atlantic killing all 228 people. A few weeks later, a Yemenia Airways plane crashed off Comoros Island in Africa killing over 150 people. And just yesterday, a Caspian Airlines went down in Iran with all 168 people feared dead. The fatalities of the first two incidents include Filipinos. There are also several emergency landings in between the crashes.

It's scary, considering that just yesterday I was also on a plane. You'd think crashes only occur in poor countries or low-cost airlines. But no, Air France one of the best airlines in the world was not spared. That plane an Airbus A330 is also one of the best in the world with really good safety record. This just shows we can't tell our fate-- whether we ride a Zest Airways or the "reliable" Philippine Airlines- we really can't tell.

Fly high :-)