Richard Champion de Crespigny was the Captain of Qantas Flight 32, an A380 that suffered massive systems damage when number two engine exploded and severed many connections. It is the kind of crazy emergency that we don’t train for. It’s the type of crazy emergency that shows airmanship isn’t all loops and rolls. It’s deep systems knowledge.
(Quote from an ‘Airways’ magazine interview, May 2015.)
“There is nothing we can do, because there is nothing that we failed in … This has to do with human factors, and you cannot predict that.”
~ Marlene Manave, the former boss of LAM Mozambique, regards her carrier’s response to the pilot murder-suicide crash of flight 470. So much for studying psychology then. Quoted in The Economist.
“Life is meant to be a challenge, because the challenges are what make you grow.”
Many Pacquiao
~ Captain James T. Kirk, starship Enterprise. In Star Trek Season 2, episode 22. First aired 9 Feb 1968.
It’s … Kirk … and … a bit … cheesy. But he captures some of the difference between safety, static, and risk, active. If safety was our business we would never fly. Risk management is our business. Flying safely is the result.
