Continental Connection flight 3047, a Bombardier Dash-8 Q400, crashed last night on approach into Buffalo. All 48 on board died, as did one person on the ground. Horribly, horribly sad.
It seems that there was a run of good luck recently with regards to crashes and people walking away from them, but this is a scary reminder that such luck is fickle. I know the numbers and I realize that I am much safer on an airplane than just about anywhere else. And I certainly am not going to stop flying voluntarily. But this is still a bit sobering.
I woke up to the news on FlyerTalk, with ~350 posts recounting details and providing better information in many cases than the news outlets were able to produce. Everything from links to the ATC radio communication to response team flights to rampant speculation as to the cause were there. And most of the folks online actually had the plane type correct, something the media seems to struggle with.
Even scarier to me on this particular flight is that the flight number is one I considered booking. Not for last night, but the same flight on other days. There were a lot of very cheap fares published a few weeks ago to and from Seattle and I’m going to be flying a few of them in the coming weeks. One of the options was routes to Buffalo. Having been there before and – more significantly to me – realizing that the BUF trips earned fewer miles, I passed on the opportunity. But I was close. Like I said before, I know that the odds are horribly in my favor, but it is still sobering knowing that I was looking at this particular flight number for some of my trips.
Anyways, my thoughts are with the families and the employees dealing with this horrible tragedy. Knowing that I met some of them just last weekend makes it a bit harder to wrap my head around.
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