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HOW MUCH INVESTMENT FOR A PASSENGERS LIFE?

The life of a passenger is not worth very much, and safe only as long as the measures necessary to ensure this safety do not exceed a certain amount of financial investment - at least if one believes the German news weekly SPIEGEL. In its issue 34/98 on page 75 the magazine reported on a study by the US Federal Aviation Authority FAA which is supposed to be confidential. Its topics are the consequences of the catastrophe of TWA flight 800 in terms of technology and safety.

Just a reminder: in 1996 a Boeing 747 was torn apart by an explosion shortly after take-off from New York. The front part of the fuselage was separated directly behind the Business Class, and the aircraft plunged into the Atlantic near Long Island. All 230 passengers on board died.

The first victims were not recovered yet when speculation went wild about the possible causes of the disaster. Bomb attack, a rocket sea-launched by terrorists, a military missile that went astray, were the news most featured by the media. At last it was, as we know today, the explosion of a fuel tank caused by sparks from an electric circuit.

What did one learn from that? What can be done to master the obvious, and in the truest sense of the word, built-in problem to avoid tragedies like this in the future, especially against the backdrop of more than a thousand Boeing 747s and around three thousand Boeing 737s with the same problem still flying today in international air traffic?

There is nothing to be done, if one believes the SPIEGEL. According to the large German news Magazine the FAA experts (supposedly) draw the conclusion in their paper that measures like an increase of the kerosene incendiary point (from the current 38 degrees centigrade to 60 degrees), the equipment of fuel tanks with features like protective gas or foam fillings or even the most simple insulation of electric wires that would prevent increasing heat near the tanks, would be much to expensive with a required investment of up to 75 billion US dollars.

The legal claims caused by accidents with a similar cause like the TWA drama during the next 10 years are expected, according to the FAA, to be "only" two billion US dollars.

The death of more than a hundred or even thousands of passengers is therefore considered cheaper and thus being taken for granted rather than the difficult and expensive technical modifications, as the FAA experts do say (reportedly).

Coolly calculating, those people offered the recommendation (supposedly), that the expensive modifications are to be applied only on new aircraft types. With the older ones the (risky) situation is to stay the same - soul selling mentality à la Washington, D. C. ?

Plain rubbish, denies the FAA; exaggerated and untrue, the German aviation authority, Luftfahrt-Bundesamt, joins in solidarily.

The colleagues of SPIEGEL on the other side refer to the confidentiality of figures and the protection of informers.

But who is telling the truth? To the passengers and the flight crews, this question really is meaningless. What really matters to them are the measures applied to protect their safety in air traffic. At the end of their examination of the TWA 800 case the FAA will disclose a so-called airworthiness directive which will prompt both the aircraft manufacturer and the operator to rework the aircraft types concerned. Those "ADs" are compulsory. The opinion that these directives offer the possibility of skipping the advised action on the back of the passengers lifes belongs to the world of imagination. People who claim things like these do not provide rational information but willingly spread panic.

Lufthansa has already reacted to this situation and has introduced several technical improvements in the field of electric wiring and fuel pumps during the last few months in accordance with Boeing.

Therefore everything is done to achieve flight safety. But a certain risk remains. The probability to be a victim of an accident similar to the TWA 800 crash is far less than one thousandth of one thousandth. Another calculatory example: In the USA 976 people died by air travel in 1997, while there were 42000 casualties on the Highways of the United States.

Flying is safe.