TEMPTING FATE?

[Stanley]

TEMPTING FATE?

24 February 2005

A few years ago in Australia I had a very interesting conversation with an off-duty Quantas pilot. He alerted me to the company’s website which contained a history of the airline and also told me something that had been not quite a guarded secret but certainly something that Quantas had not exploited in their advertising.
The story of the Queensland and Northern Territories Air Services is fascinating and well worth seeking out, it would make a good film. The little known fact about them is that of all the world’s major airlines they have never had a single passenger fatality due to a crash. The pilot told me that the company had a policy of not using this as an advertising ploy because it might be seen as tempting fate.
I stored this snippet of information away in the Little Known Facts category at the back of my head and got on with life until I was reminded about it the other day when I saw an advertisement for Quantas in which they mentioned their unblemished record. Evidently the need to promote the brand has overcome any qualms about bragging about their record.
I’m not too sure that there is a mechanism whereby the fates are alerted and will mount an attack on Quantas but it seems to me that in the normal course of events Quantas will eventually lose their perfect record. They are after all a human organisation working with machinery built by humans and there is no such thing as perfection. I fear that Quantas may eventually have reason to regret changing their previous policy on this matter. I think I would have left well alone. Tempting fate?

24 February 2005

[Tripps]

Mentioned in the film Rainman released in the USA in 1988.

Rainman

Seems it is still true for the era after the introduction of jet engined flights. (Wiki)