Airline Safety, Air Trivia
 

For the person (Southwest Airlines post) who was asking about airline crash histories (and for any other trivia nerds out there), the data at AirSafe.com is as follows: <BR> <BR>US carriers without a fatal incident since 1970 (Or whenever the carrier went into business): <BR>America West <BR>Southwest <BR> <BR>Minor carriers/commuters without a fatal incident: <BR>Hawaiian <BR>Aloha <BR>Sun Country <BR>American Trans Air <BR> <BR> <BR>Forbes Magazine rating of quality of US carriers top to bottom (Based on multiple criteria): <BR>Delta <BR>Southwest <BR>Alaskan <BR>USAirways (?!) <BR>American <BR>Continental <BR>Northwest <BR>United <BR>TWA <BR>America West <BR> <BR>Top customer satisfaction rating (many times over): <BR>Southwest <BR> <BR> <BR>Busiest airports in the WORLD (total passengers): <BR>Atlanta-Hartsfield <BR>Chicago-O'Hare <BR>LAX <BR>London-Heathrow <BR>Dallas <BR>Frankfurt <BR> <BR> <BR>Top destination for foreign travellers (total number of foreign visitors): <BR>France <BR>Spain (?!) <BR>USA <BR>Italy <BR>China <BR>UK

Hate to differ with the experts, but Aloha Airlines had one of their planes turn into a convertible about 12 years ago. A flight attendant was sucked out of the plane and lost at sea. Although the pilots managed to land the topless plane (there was a tv movie made about it) I don't call that minor. It was the first instance where they recognized that the skin of old jets become unstable after too many pressurizations.

Tani --- Glad you brought this up. I, too, remembered the incident very well, but could not remember if it was Aloha or Hawaiian. The pilot got a commendation for his landing of that plane.

Try www.airsaftyonline.com <BR>A source of excellent information

Maybe it's splitting hairs, but airline fatal incidents are characterized by airsafe.com as when there is a passenger fatality. In the Aloha Airlines case, the fatality was a crewmember, as is noted on the site. Not that it makes much difference to the crewmember or their family. And the accident did serve to focus attention on the number of re/de-pressurization cycles of an aircraft's skin over its useful life relative to failure.