Picture this: you’re flying in a little plane on your way to the big city for who-knows-what reason.
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Perhaps for business, or you’re seeing relatives, but you’re getting away for a few days, or just overnight, and that’s good enough.
Most people are apprehensive about flying on smaller planes.
They want the big tube surrounding them as a sense of comfort when they are 30,000 feet in the air.
You look out your window and something rushes past it.
No, it’s not a bird.
It’s part of the plane you’ve entrusted to get you to your destination safely.
And not just any part – the propeller.
The part we are told in primary school is largely responsible for keeping a plane airborne.
When a car gets a flat tyre or has engine troubles or the XPT is running late because a hot track means it had to slow down, we shrug our shoulders and deal with it.
It’s inconvenient but it is easy to be blaze when we are safely on land.
But when spokespeople and experts say that a propeller falling off a plane mid-flight is nothing to worry about, excuse us when we don’t believe you.
Those involved in landing the Regional Express Airlines (REX) SAAB 340 flight from Albury to Sydney safely should be commended.
It sounds as though pilots and staff handled the situation well.
Passengers who slightly freaked out, you are forgiven.
Frequent fliers are swearing never to fly with Rex again.
What happened was scary but it’s no cause to boycott an airline otherwise passengers would never fly with Malaysian Airlines, United Airlines, American Airlines or US Airways again.
Accidents like these are rare, at best, and for all the flights that have malfunctions there are hundreds more that do not.
Mystery surrounds how the propeller flew off, pardon the pun.
Was it an oversight?
Laziness?
A simple accident?
But the biggest mystery still remains – where did it land?
It could very well be lost in the middle of the Riverina somewhere, buried in the middle of the bushland like a bizarre plot twist in Lost.