"Qantas has never had a fatal accident* .

i believe that QANTAS has stated, correctly, they have never had a 'fatal jet accident'.

That means they are more likely to have one soon."

glad to know these broadcasters and research staff passed their statistics class ... NOT!

With media coverage of that low standard you despair tbh.

it seems the only researched news now comes from commedians - jon stewart and stephen colbert. long gone are the days of edward r. morrow and walter cronkite--

Looks like a bugs list of a new addon!

Looks like a bugs list of a new addon!

Excellent :(

Wasn't the MB last mission actually without incident altogether? The movie is just a dramatization, not?!?

Correct, and it's rather typical of the dramatically-inclined press to incorrectly assume that a movie is an accurate portrayal of a real event by simply not bothering to research things properly. Whilst the fictional Memphis Belle movie is an okay flick, it bears about as much resemblance to the real Memphis Belle's story as Star Wars does. The real Belle was more or less unscathed on its final combat mission, which was to a different target than that depicted in the fictional movie, and like the vast majority of B-17s, it wasn't flown by the same crew for all of its 25 missions. The crew members who flew most missions in the real Memphis Belle are largely on record as saying that the movie bears little resemblance to the true tale, and was a disappointment to them even as a composite of events, but then again, that's Hollywood for you (and in the case of the fictional movie, Pinewood too, since it was mostly filmed in the UK).Pretty much all the events in the fictional 1990 movie did genuinely happen to real B-17s on missions at some point, and many of the shots in the fictional movie are literally identically-composed reshoots of scenes from William Wyler's original documentary combat footage for his 1944 film, Memphis Belle: A story of a Flying Fortress. For example, the ending scene where the radio operator 'Danny' is stretchered out of the plane stripped down to his electrically-heated blue suit and seen being passed a cigarette, is an identical shot to that of a real B-17 injured crew member (not from the Memphis Belle) being similarly cared for.Ironically, even the real documentary is not completely accurate either (although certainly more real since it was filmed on real missions), because the Memphis Belle was not the first B-17 to complete 25 missions; that was in fact achieved by the 303rd's B-17, Hell's Angels a few days before the Belle also achieved the feat. Thus Hell's Angels narrowly missed being the subject of the documentary in place of the Belle, because it too was being filmed as a back up in case the Belle was shot down, which was of course a very real possibility. Other aircraft also played the role of the Belle for the documentary too, since on a few occasions she was out of commission with battle damage over the period Wyler was filming. As a consequence, some of the shots from the documentary were on board other B-17s, notably one named Jersey Bounce, and most of the footage which makes up the documentary where the genuine Belle is seen, is in fact its 24th and not its 25th mission, which can be seen by the fact that she sports differing paintwork on her wheels in various scenes.With all that said, the real 1944 documentary is still very much worth checking out, as it is a remarkably frank and at times sobering piece of movie making.Al

"this has always been how the numbers are 'crunched'. you cannot build anything with a 0% failure rate.""this is our reality on this earth. tomorrow a mountain might blow (i can see mt. rainier from my house), the 'big quake' might hit (i live on a fault), the hillside might fail because of water saturation (i live at the bottom of a hill at it is the rain/wet season), or i could get hit by a meteor ... etc etc etc"Scoob, agreed with what you said, but I was referring to the other bean counters. I saw a documentary around nine or ten(?) years ago about a certain suv, and how the fact that it should have been around xx inches wider to be "safe".The company that built it vehemently denied this fact, but coincidentally made the next version with the required changes in width. It was part of the newer design according to the manufacturer of course.The documentary touched on the fact that insurance claims and lawsuits would cost a lot less than a total recall of the suv, so roll the dice and take a chance.Simple reply sadly enough:http://blog.seattlepi.com/aerospace/archives/228418.asp