Destroying meritocracy is deadly

A recent epidemic of airline near misses deserves both attention and reflection.

In mid-December, a San Francisco-bound United Airlines Boeing 777-200 airliner suddenly dived just a little over a minute after taking off from Maui, Hawaii. The airliner lost more than half its altitude and came within 800 feet of crashing into the Pacific Ocean before pulling up.

About a month later, an American Airlines jet crossed the runway at New York City’s John F. Kennedy International Airport just as a Delta Air Lines plane was accelerating for takeoff. The two aircraft nearly collided.

Then in February, a FedEx cargo jet at the Austin, Texas, airport just missed crashing into a Southwest Airlines airliner by a mere 100 feet.