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Saturday, 8 December, 2007 9:52 PM
How Safe is Air Travel?
Pilot
Reveals the True Dangers of Congested Skies
Every time you board
a plane, do you have to silence that little voice in your head that
asks ‘what if?’ What if on this seemingly normal day,
the plane I’m boarding becomes a grim statistic of a debris
field strewn with twisted and charred metal? What if the air traffic
control team on duty is overworked and understaffed, and doesn’t
notice my flight veering into the path of another plane? Well, brace
yourself.
Author Phillip S. Donlay’s latest thriller Code Black presents
a nightmarish air travel scenario. He puts the reader squarely in
the middle of an all-too-plausible mid-air accident that leaves
a crippled commercial jet struggling to stay airborne over Chicago
with nowhere to go – except perhaps the icy waters of Lake
Michigan.
Unfortunately for air travelers this scenario is not far-fetched
in the least. In October of this year two private planes came close
to colliding in mid-air near Las Vegas due to an error made by an
air traffic controller. Donlay, also a professional pilot with 30
years experience, knows all-too-well the very real danger of mid-air
collisions. He vividly remembers the day when an air-controller
error resulted in his plane and a 727 crossing paths at 37,000 feet
over Indianapolis. “We saw him just in time,” says Donlay.
“We took evasive action and crossed over the top of him by
200 feet. It was a close call that I’ll never forget.”
While researching his book, Donlay uncovered more than a dozen documented
midair accidents. His fictional, but entirely possible, scenario
envisions what could happen if a small series of events at an air-traffic-control
site snowballed into a major midair collision. Midair collisions
are a part of our history, with nearly 1,600 people dead since the
beginning of commercial air travel. But could Donlay’s ficitional
account become a grim reality?
“Certainly, there are safeguards in place to prevent something
like what I write about in Code Black from happening,” says
Donlay. “But even with all the high-tech processes and systems
at the air-traffic-controllers’ fingertips, human error is
still a very real danger.”
In June, Aviation Today reported seven recent near mid-air collisions
in the vicinity of the New York area. The local air-traffic controllers
union says Kennedy, Newark and La Guardia airports are short-staffed,
a problem cited by air-traffic-controllers in locations across the
country.
While air-traffic-controllers bemoan not having enough people in
the control tower, the number of people in the skies is ever-increasing.
FAA officials say Very Light Jets, or VLJs, a new generation of
aircraft that are inexpensive and can land almost anywhere will
cause a large surge in air traffic.
If you have ever sat in the back of an airliner and wondered, “what
if?”, then you are not alone. Code Black, although a work
of fiction, plays out the thrilling and terrifying possibility of
a mid-air collision, a terrible scenario…but one based in
fact.
ABOUT PHILIP S. DONLAY
Philip Donlay earned his private pilot’s license while he
was still in high school. At the age of nineteen, he became a flight
instructor in Wichita, Kansas. Soon he was offered an opportunity
to stretch his wings—all the way to Saudi Arabia. After months
of flying private jets over wind-swept deserts, he returned to the
United States.
Today, he is licensed to fly six different types of jets and holds
the civilian title of Senior Captain. His travels have taken him
to thirty-five countries on four continents. He now divides his
time between Minneapolis and Northern Virginia.
Donlay’s first novel, Category Five, was published in 2005
and earned widespread praise.
Source: News and
Experts
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