Benedictine College boasts students from 48 . For much of the student body, home is more than a road trip away— it’s a plane ride away, or several.
For students that rely on air travel, the recent increase in plane crashes may pose a grave concern. This trend of aviation related mishaps has been building for almost a year now. , an emergency exit door famously detached from the side of a Delta Airlines jet mid-flight. And in the past month, two deadly crashes occurred in the United States. Notably, an American Airlines flight crashed into a Black Hawk helicopter on Jan. 29 , leaving no survivors.
In a 2023 episode of The Daily, a podcast by the New York Times, journalist Sydney Ember discussed why these accidents might be occurring.
“So what we found in our reporting was a lot of these close calls are caused by mistakes among air traffic controllers and also among pilots,” Ember said. “And what we found was actually the most acute challenge is the shortage of air traffic controllers across the country.”
A shortage of air traffic controllers would cause problems for the aviation industry. But rather than take effective steps to address the problem, the Federal Aviation Administration was content to sit back and watch the safety of commercial flights slowly regress, according to Ember.
“They won’t do anything until something catastrophic does occur, until people do die,” Ember said. “The people we talked to say there really is no excuse for the FAA not to do something before one of these close calls leads to a fatal crash.”
Ember’s prediction rings true. Multiple fatal crashes later, customers have good reason to question their safety on a commercial flight.
Thérèse Temkkit, a junior at Benedictine College, is one such customer.
“I am from New Hampshire,” Temkkit said. “An average flight home is six hours with a midway stop. I do enjoy flying, but the busyness of airports tends to stress me out. Hearing new stories of plane crashes has not changed my view of flying, but it has made me want to be more aware.”
While Temkkit may not be deterred from flying home, recent developments have made her more aware of the potential dangers of commercial flight.
“I would say that aviation professionals should address the cause of these plane crashes and how they tend to avoid these situations in the future,” Temkkit said. “Flying is my only way home and the only way I can get around the country this summer for weddings, so I would like to feel safe in knowing that something is being done to prevent these crashes from happening again.”
Maria King, a junior from Maui, Hawaii, has an even longer journey home.
“The flight plan is probably 14 hours,” King said. “It can be more than that. It just really depends on where I fly to. It could be more or less. I think the last time it was 12 because I only had one stop, but it could be like 1 6 if I fly up to Minnesota and then down.”
King grew up flying and would not say she is afraid of the process. However, in recent years, even she has noticed troubling signs.
“I think about two years ago, I heard a bunch of people got super injured because they hit extremely unexpected turbulence, and people flew and hit… their head on the ceiling,” King said. “And so after that, I’m a little bit more terrified of turbulence. It didn’t scare me, but plane crashes, they do scare me. Just because I fly so much, and they just they come out of nowhere.”
As a frequent flyer, King believes the recent rise in deadly crashes is likely tied to a systemic issue.
“I went in a black hole of plane safety not too long ago and really found out how much Boeing is not keeping their planes safe enough to code,” King said. “And also, everywhere is DEI hiring right now, and that has a lot to do with quality. Airlines should be clearer about the standards at which they hold planes, because sometimes you’re flying on a plane and you’re like, this is old, and I’m concerned.”
Whether the root of the problem lies in DEI hiring, faulty mechanical standards, or personnel shortage, something needs to change. Ember’s predicted catastrophe has come to pass. How will the FAA respond ?
