Airworthiness — An Insurer's View

Airworthiness to an Insurer means basically one thing and that is safety. Hopefully, despite considerations of the economic viability of an aircraft for the job in question it basically means the same to the Aviation Industry. Product safety is a goal at which manufacturers have obviously been aiming since the birth of Aviation technology and there is an ever increasing contemporary public concern over the safety of manufactured devices to which it is exposed. An American friend once told me that he supposed the most intriguing expression of such concern dates from the Nineteenth Century when a convicted murderer by the name of Palmer was led to the gallows. As he mounted the steps he looked at the lethal device and uttered as his last words “Are you quite sure it is safe?”. I am not proposing to suggest that an aircraft is as lethal as this, but there are very few other situations where a person is so deprived of any control over his destiny than when he is sitting in a metal cylinder proceeding through the air at high altitude and high speed. It is no wonder that the three martini lunch is a favourite with passengers.