After the missing Malaysia flight, is it safe to fly?

M O N D AY 17 MARCH 2014 A Boeing 777 has seemingly disappeared, along i!h !he 2"# people on $oard% B&! is Malaysia Airlines more ris'y( And is i! sa)e !o )ly a! all(

Ho sa)e is )lying( It is every nervous flyer's worst nightmare: a flight gone AWOL with no explanation, and no way of contacting those on board In reality however, there are enough security procedures in place and hoops for passengers and staff to !ump though, to mean that stepping on board an airplane is very safe When it comes to "# operators, you are $% times more li&ely to be hit by lightning than to die on a plane, according to the "#'s 'ivil Aviation Authority ('AA) *he organisation is also &een to point out that the fatality rate for flying is

very favourable when you compare it to other modes of transport: a rate of + ++, deaths per billion &ilometres travelled, compared to -, ./ as a mere pedestrian Ha*e people s!opped )lying( Around -,%,%++ 0ritish nationals visit 1alaysia each year (none were on the missing 12,/+), but when you widen it out, /%+,+++,+++ people fly within Asia alone every year It goes without saying that the vast ma!ority have a completely routine flying experience And travel operators, including *homas 'oo&, told 'hannel - 3ews that one mystery disappearance has not deterred future flyers in the face of low cost flights 2owever experts say that if you want to maximise your safety chances, flying with a 0ritish or Irish airline is best bet, in terms of safety: the "#'s fatal accident rate is %/ per cent lower than the rest of the 4" combined *he 'AA doesn't have figures for the rest of the world, but it is safe to say that it has more procedures in place to identify potential causes 5 and reduce them 5 than elsewhere *he Aviation 6afety 3etwor& also has this handy database of airlines that have suffered an accident, serious incident or hi!ac&ing

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Is Malaysia Airlines safe? *he airline has a good trac& record for safety in the past 0ut that hasn't stopped passengers from shunning 1alaysia Airlines when boo&ing future flights, travel expert and travel editor for the Independent, 6imon 'alder, told 'hannel - 3ews (see above) 7*here is no effect on overall passenger confidence about flying, no effect on the 0oeing ///, the aircraft involved 8 people are very happy to go to 1alaysia on holiday,7 he said 7*he one aspect that there does seem to be concern about is 1alaysia Airlines I guess that's simply because every day we are seeing on our screens an image of this aircraft ta&ing off, and no8one &nows where it is 7 Is this fair9 :robably not, he adds: 7;espite the terrible time that it is going through, and despite the reputational damage it will almost certainly get, it remains a very safe airline 7 Co&ld a plane disappearing happen here( One of the reasons the 1alaysia Airlines plane seems to have disappeared so effectively, is because it was passing from one airspace to another at precisely the time it lost communication Air8traffic controllers in 1alaysia had !ust handed over the flight to <ietnam before the A'A=6 data8 transmission system was disabled

'ould it happen elsewhere9 *he trac&ing of airplanes relies on countries' satellites and monitoring procedure: there is no global trac&ing system that monitors aircrafts at all times And if a pilot disables the transponder communication e>uipment, as it appears that the co8pilot of the missing plane did, there is little that people on the ground can do 2owever in 0ritain, and the "#, 7many systems would start to flash7, air safety adviser ;avid ?leave told 'hannel - 3ews 7We have a lot of bac&ups here In countries li&e Indonesia, the procedures are much more lax in terms of how they communicate from one airspace to another 7 Authorities automatically monitor an airplane moving from one airspace to another within 4urope And if there no response once warnings are activated, and the plane is veering off course from its intended flight path, !ets are scrambled 7*he threat then escalates,7 1r ?leave added, 7and then if necessary, military !ets will be called to go and investigate the radar return that@s being trac&ed at that point 7 +ill air !ra*el ,hange as a res&l!( Airport security tightened beyond recognition after the 6eptember $$ attac&s *he so8called 7toothpaste bomb7 threats were followed by restrictions on flying with li>uids in hand luggage 6o will the recent disappearance impact how we fly9 1alaysia Airlines have already said security procedures will be tightened from now on 0ut passport control is li&ely to be the main focus in future, said 1r 'alder 7I thin& longer term, we will see calls for much tighter controls on who is actually on the flight, so that there will be, for example, passport chec&s against a centralised database of missing travel documents,7 he

told 'hannel - 3ews 7And also, there have been calls already for having an air marshal on board a flight, perhaps on the flight dec&, to stop unwanted intrusions 8 and indeed to &eep an eye on the pilots 7