Shutterstock
The bottom line is air travel is very safe – much safer than road travel. But that doesn’t stop us from wondering…
Planes have many sensors, supplying all kinds of useful data.
vaalaa/Shutterstock.com
A pilot and researcher knows that airplanes are full of sensors – and finds a way onboard computers can use the data to detect equipment failure and tell pilots what’s a real emergency and what’s not.
An investigator surveys wreckage at the site of the Ethiopian Airlines crash.
Baz Ratner/Reuters
The inquiries can take months of painstaking work, but often yield important insights that improve flight safety for everyone long into the future.
Amelia Earhart’s Lockheed Model 10-E Electra, with advanced navigation equipment mounted above the cockpit.
USAF/Wikimedia Commons
Eight decades after missing aviator Amelia Earhart was declared dead, technologies still don’t quite track every airplane all over the globe.
One of the new Qantas Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircraft arrives on its first flight into Sydney.
AAP Image/Dean Lewins
Airlines want to stretch their routes even longer with non-stop flights to almost anywhere in the world.
Alexey Y. Petrov/Shutterstock
Pilots are carefully trained to handle any crisis – but what happens when they are no longer fit mid-flight?