I’m not afraid of the general idea of flying, but I feel much more comfortable driving on highways with careless drivers than I am with flying thousands of miles above the ground in a metal tomb with my life entrusted with strangers and the competences of the engineers and mechanics who built and repair this complex machine.
1) What is the number one safety problem that the aviation industry needs to address? It could be anything-security, flight maintenance, air traffic control, etc. Why hasn’t the issue been fixed?
2) Has language skills ever been a problem in pilots contacting air traffic control? Has it ever resulted in a crash?
3) How common are tailstrikes? Are they mostly due to pilot incompetence?
4) If an aircraft’s hydraulic fluid is completely leaked out due to an explosion of some sort, are the chances of an emergency landing essentially zero?
5) Does adverse weather cause phugoids? When are phugoids fatal?
6) If an explosion damages the flight control cables in midflight, are the chances of survival zero?
7) How differently do traffic collision avoidance system and ground proximity warning systems work? Would they both work if the plane is flying upside down?
What other object identification systems are there? Why aren’t planes equipped with missile detecting systems?
9) Are ground proximity warning systems equally as valuable as altitude indicators to prevent collisions with terrain?
10) If a plane’s static wicks are broken, what would happen to the plane after lightning strikes it? Would the electricity reach the fuselage and cause the plane to explode?
11) Are flight plans these days compiled by computers? Is there any chance of a computer glitch resulting in a flight plan for a plane to fly in a particular situation where it shouldn’t be?
