When the dinner trays have been cleared, the aircraft lights turned down and the passengers are asleep or peering at screens, I sometimes reflect on what an inventive species ours is.
Here we are in a long tube, 35,000 feet high, soaring across thousands of miles of land mass and oceans. And while there are some highly qualified people in the cockpit, the plane is largely flying its computer-controlled self.
Last year, aircraft flew 3.8bn passengers, equivalent to more than half the world’s population, and they did so mostly in safety. In 2016, there were 10 fatal airline accidents, with 268 deaths.
您已閱讀13%（604字），剩余87%（3887字）包含更多重要信息，訂閱以繼續探索完整內容，并享受更多專屬服務。