On October 31st Virgin fired 13 of its cabin crew who had posted derogatory comments about its safety standards and some of its passengers on a Facebook forum.
Steady advances in automation and robotics are now invisibly encapsulated in navigation, weather avoidance, traffic management, flight controls, safety and communications aids that materially benefit the two-pilot front cabin.
But crashes have become more survivable, thanks largely to tougher safety standards that require seats capable of surviving major impact and slower-burning cabin materials.
In 1999, a private jet carrying golfer Payne Stewart and five others crashed after apparently losing cabin pressure "for undetermined reasons" after takeoff from Florida, the National Transportation Safety Board found.