That’s it people, pack it up. We had a good run, but flying is just to dangerous to continue doing these days.
Literally just hours ago I wrote a piece on the Boeing plane that burst into flames after taking off in Miami and now we’ve got another story from the sky unfolding, but this time it’s about 15 minutes away from where I sit writing this.
A Cessna 208B Grand Caravan headed to Lancaster, Pennsylvania took off from Washington-Dulles International Airport but immediately some problems occurred and less than two minutes later it was forced to make an emergency landing on the Loudoun County Parkway.
WTOP reporter Neal Augenstein spoke with Jesse Labell who saw the whole thing unfold:
“I was driving down Loudoun County here to go get some lunch. Um, I heard a loud noise and, you know, was thinking it was my car blowing up or something, and look up and there’s a plane 20 feet above me and it lands 20-30 feet in front of me.
And you know, just freaking out. Lands right before the lights over here… drove underneath it, got squirrely over here and hit the guardrail.
And then I checked on everybody, make sure they’re all good…
I think there was like 8 people total or something like that and they were all just shocked, everybody was okay, more so what the heck just happened kind of thing.”
Other people on the scene have posted videos to X, showing a line of traffic stacked up behind the downed aircraft. Fortunately, no serious injuries have been reported.
Obviously, this could have been an absolute disaster. Between the cars on the road and already slick conditions from the snow, this easily could have turned out quite poorly and all things considered this was the best possible outcome given the issues.
But that leads me to another point…
What the hell is going on with air travel in America?
Between the Miami plane catching on fire, the door blowing off a Boeing a few weeks ago, and countless other stories of planes being forced to land for mechanical problems, it’s really not looking safe to travel by plane anymore.
Truthfully, I don’t understand. The US has all sorts of regulations in place which are supposed to prevent these type of things from happening, so what gives?
Let’s hope somebody smarter than me can figure all of this out, but in the meantime I don’t know if I’ll be booking any flights…
I recommend listening to Sagaar Enjeti’s take on these problems from Breaking Points a few weeks ago. While it may not fix anything immediately, people understanding the issues plaguing these large corporations can plant a seed that forces some changes for the better.
