Two years afterward the U.S. and Egyptian governments are still quarreling over the cause; a clash that grows out of cultural division, not factual uncertainty. A look at the flight data from a pilot's perspective, with the help of simulations of the accident, points to what the Egyptians must already know: the crash was caused not by any mechanical failure but by a pilot's intentional act
As a reconstruction of this terrible crash suggests, in complex systems some accidents may be "normal"—and trying to prevent them all could even make operations more dangerous
For all the reports of equipment failures and “close calls” and controller burnout, the nation's air-traffic-control system is in fact far less precarious, in terms of safety, than people imagine it to be. The real threat to the system’s integrity has as yet received little attention.
<em>It is the hottest place in the world, and the driest. It is home to thriving commerce and to desperate, hopeless poverty. It is the Sahara, an eternal source of fascination and terror</em>
