Let's not forget where killers roam most

The world has been shocked and horrified by the sudden realisation that a mentally ill person may be flying a commercial airliner. Air travel – despite increasingly frequent tragedies – was always described as relatively safer than other forms of travel.

The latest incident, arguably the most horrific this year involving a passenger aircraft, must have changed many people’s attitude towards flying. But when the dust settles, the issue will be seen as having ramifications far beyond the aviation industry.

The Germanwings tragedy stunned everyone because it was generally assumed that airline personnel, particularly those in charge of piloting aircraft, went through more strenuous training and tougher screening than, say, drivers of inter-provincial buses or trains. Engineers who build skyscrapers may have found it easier than pilot wannabes to get working licences. Those who captain ships, ferries or cruisers certainly are not considered to be in the same league as airline pilots and must be working under far less stringent rules.

Lawsuits will most likely overwhelm those who own Germanwings. The issue of “accountability” will come to the fore. The controversial pilot’s family, love life and work background will go through a thorough autopsy. Questions will be asked to try and determine if the tragedy could have been prevented had someone paid a little extra attention to the man.

The thing is, it should be the same for all organisations that basically have other people’s lives in their hands. Of course, nobody can be known personally inside and out. There is a good chance that many train drivers and maritime captains or those who construct bridges and high-rise buildings have drug or drinking problems. Or they could suffer from chronic depression. But the truth is that if the Germanwings incident should have been preventable, so should many other low-profile cases.

There are two types of accidents. The first is due to juxtapositions of bad luck, like when a panicked animal cuts in front of a car making the driver swerve and the vehicle hits an oncoming school bus. 

Other accidents may still look like they are caused by bad luck, but if we connect the dots we could find that tragic chains of events were set in motion by irresponsibility here or insufficiency there.

Measures have been discussed to prevent another pilot from doing the same as the co-pilot of the ill-fated Germanwings flight. Attitude tests will be tougher for future pilots. The general public, however, can only hope that the awareness, measures, penalties and sense of responsibility spread far beyond the airline industry. People die everyday because of poor safety awareness, ignored or inefficient measures, and the pain of those left behind is often amplified by a lack of responsibility by those who should have been held responsible.

We are living in a world where rights to safety are very underrated. Sometimes law enforcers are to blame. Sometimes the public themselves cause lapses in safety standards. Sometimes those holding people’s lives in their hands – transport companies, constructors, engineers, manufacturers or machine operators – are ignorant. Sometimes it’s a bit of everything.

Unless the general attitudes towards safety changes, tragedies like the Germanwings crash are bound to happen again sooner or later. And those tragedies don’t need to involve something that falls from the sky. It can be a collapsed bridge built by an engineer suffering from a hangover. Or it may involve a driver forced to work extra hours. 

We wish the Germanwings case will be a one-off, but who can really tell? To live or die nowadays depends on more people than just pilots of passenger planes.