Safety
with the usual down time between Christmas and reality setting in again I was reading a local history article about a post war accident near to where I live and I looked it up one the Aviation Safety Network database. While looking at that site it struck me that in the 50s-60s and even into the 70s barelya week went by without a significant air crash . Indeed in some cases large established airlines had several crashes in a year sometimes only weeks apart.
Happily today things are very different despite the occasional contention that some younger crew cannot actually fly the plane at all -Children of the Magenta Line etc., and I wondered what was the single most important invention, improvement, innovation that made air travel what it is today in terms of safety.
So leaving aside the self evident quantum leap to turbine power ridding the world of continual engine failures, substantial excess power and ability to fly over the worst of the weather what has contributed most to the reduction in accidents we happily see today compared with those of more than 40 years ago.
Any ideas from the informed?
PB