Into the gloomy skies...

Never before has aviation faced such a crisis as it faces now. Problems keep piling up over each other. Recession, a crash in Africa, the Russian crash, the volcano in Iceland and now out of nowhere an air-crash in Mangalore.

Said to be one of the worst aviation disasters since the mid-air collision back in the 1990's killing about 150 people. Yes, a few people do live to tell the tale, but why did this happen at all?

A runway overshoot. Simple. But dreadful. And the sudden nature of this crash makes it that much more tragic. Mangalore has a very challenging airstrip, so to say, and perhaps a crash here was simply inevitable. A pilot must discard all notions of natural instinct in order to pull off a landing on table top runways of that type. Only further investigation can shed light on many crucial facts.

Well, all these News flashes may put flight at a higher level of danger for the public. I for one have a sort of fear towards flights. Well, not the sort of fear that makes you shiver and fret on the flight but rather a continuous conscious contemplation on the planes every move. And Maybe EVERY move would be an overstatement but you get my point.

It's not that I hate flying but rather I have a sort of love/hate relationship with flight. I love every thing about the concept of flight. The thought that at that moment your over 37,000 feet in the air exposed to blasts of freezing negative temperature while you leisurely sip your coffee. The prospect of going to the other side of the globe within a day. The prospect of sitting still in a massive jumbo jet which flies in seemingly perpetual motion. 

But, at the same time I hate the feeling of flying, the constant modulation of engine sounds, the rapid oscillation of the planes wings when in turbulence, the accumulation of frost on the windows...yeah, I'm paranoid all right.

To some flying may give them some sort of superficial joy and maybe to some it may mean catching hours of sleep between international business meetings. To others it may present to them the experience of waiting countless hours in a claustrophobic metallic bird. But there is something common for them all. It's dead costly.
In a world where dough isn't so easy to come by, today's air costs burns hole in the common man's pocket. And the situation doesn't seem like it is improving either. Rising jet fuel prices and credit crunches cripple airlines worldwide. Most airlines have presented some dreadful gains in the past years and it looks like all that cost cutting is going to cease.

The future of flight seems as foggy as the skies out of the cockpit windows. But, the harsh truth is that aviation learns from its mistakes just like everyone else. Each air crash teaches them something. And that is the way the industry is.


R.I.P Flight 812 and all those who went down with it...

Signing off for now...Sudharshan!