Cleared for Take-off
By the standards of road transport the airlines' record is good-yet, disasters and ' incidents' such as near-misses still hit the headlines. In air travel, how safe is
' safe enough'?
We join Captain Steve James and his passengers on a flight from Gatwick to Los Angeles. On the way, danger points are identified and we see research into air-traffic control, aircraft design, the role of the stewardess, the avoidance of mid-air collisions, electronic flight decks, the problem of whirlwind vortices that can topple an aircraft and a new fuel additive that may virtually eliminate the instant conflagrations that (as at Tenerife) kill hundreds, but which would also increase the cost of flying.
Narrator PAUL VAUGHAN
Film editor CHRISTOPHER WOOLLEY Editor simon CAMPBELL-JONES Written and produced by ALEC NISBETT and PAULA APSELL