&lt;div&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-wC2dx1blXBg/TpNBqDGZ02I/AAAAAAAABe4/FHN5F6KIkug/s1600/view+over+wing.jpg&quot;&gt;&lt;img border=&quot;0&quot; height=&quot;201&quot; src=&quot;http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-wC2dx1blXBg/TpNBqDGZ02I/AAAAAAAABe4/FHN5F6KIkug/s320/view+over+wing.jpg&quot; width=&quot;320&quot; alt=&quot;view+over+wing.jpg&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;I recognize that as an aviation journalist I am part of the problem. And the problem as I see it is this. We generate so many words about safety but the attention is disproportionately paid to airlines. Don&#039;t get me wrong, as a frequent flyer, I&#039;m all for safe airline operations. It&#039;s just that other forms of transportation -&nbsp;&lt;i&gt;riskier &lt;/i&gt;forms of transportation without the &lt;a href=&quot;http://christinenegroni.blogspot.com/2010/11/why-are-you-so-sexy.html&quot;&gt;sex appeal of the big airlines&lt;/a&gt;, sometimes seem to get a pass.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Just last week, for example, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/05/nyregion/bus-company-shut-after-i-95-crash-reappears-under-new-name.html?ref=buses&quot;&gt;I wrote a story&lt;/a&gt; for The New York Times, reporting that a motor coach operator responsible for a horrific crash that killed 15 people earlier this year, had essentially evaded a &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.dot.gov/&quot;&gt;Department of Transportation&lt;/a&gt; cease operation order by simply transfering buses from the sanctioned company to another bus company also under his control.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;table cellpadding=&quot;0&quot; cellspacing=&quot;0&quot;&gt;&lt;tbody&gt;&lt;tr&gt;&lt;td&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-nMdmpCXbUqY/TpNEbQ2GP6I/AAAAAAAABe8/HjtIn0h-uIM/s1600/Platnium+Jet+Management+teteroboro+crash.jpg&quot;&gt;&lt;img border=&quot;0&quot; height=&quot;240&quot; src=&quot;http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-nMdmpCXbUqY/TpNEbQ2GP6I/AAAAAAAABe8/HjtIn0h-uIM/s320/Platnium+Jet+Management+teteroboro+crash.jpg&quot; width=&quot;320&quot; alt=&quot;Platnium+Jet+Management+teteroboro+crash&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/td&gt;&lt;/tr&gt;&lt;tr&gt;&lt;td&gt;&lt;i&gt;Photo courtesy NTSB&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/td&gt;&lt;/tr&gt;&lt;/tbody&gt;&lt;/table&gt;When the complex ownership of &lt;a href=&quot;http://avstop.com/news/platinum_jet.htm&quot;&gt;Platinum Jet Management&lt;/a&gt; came to light after a runway excursion in &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.panynj.gov/airports/teterboro.html&quot;&gt;Teterboro Airport&lt;/a&gt; in 2004, the FAA and the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.ntsb.gov/&quot;&gt;NTSB&lt;/a&gt; were all over the issue like white on rice.&nbsp; Criminal charges were filed and rules dealing with operational control in business aviation were tightened.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I&#039;m ruminating about all this today because I watched with a horrified fascination this video taken by the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.uscg.mil/d14/&quot;&gt;U.S. Coast Guard&lt;/a&gt; on October 7th.&nbsp; This was a ditching off the coast of Hawaii when the pilot of a twin engine &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.airliners.net/aircraft-data/stats.main?id=149&quot;&gt;Cessna 310&lt;/a&gt; realized he did not have enough fuel to make it to the mainland.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Bless those Coasties from the 14th District in Honolulu, they&nbsp; not only saved the day, they had the presence of mind to video tape the plane&#039;s final seconds aloft and the pilot&#039;s miraculous emergence from the cockpit out onto the wing.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Charles Brian Mellor, 65, was ferrying the plane from&nbsp;Monterey,&nbsp;California to &lt;a href=&quot;http://hawaii.gov/ito&quot;&gt;Hilo International Airport&lt;/a&gt;. And though he was flying with auxiliary fuel tanks, about 500 miles from his destination he realized he would run short of gas and radioed the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.faa.gov/&quot;&gt;Federal Aviation Administration&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Angela Henderson, a press officer with the Coast Guard says when the rescue center got the call at 12:30 on Friday they immediately dispatched a &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.seanews.com.tr/article/HOTN/48858/Coast-guard-Plane-distress-signal-taiwanese-fishing-vessel/&quot;&gt;C-130&lt;/a&gt; and a Coast Guard cutter along a track line looking to intercept the airplane.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;table cellpadding=&quot;0&quot; cellspacing=&quot;0&quot;&gt;&lt;tbody&gt;&lt;tr&gt;&lt;td&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-XexAC5w9q1w/TpNN22Fs-4I/AAAAAAAABfA/ZvRVITPfy5M/s1600/coast+guard+cutter.jpg&quot;&gt;&lt;img border=&quot;0&quot; height=&quot;223&quot; src=&quot;http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-XexAC5w9q1w/TpNN22Fs-4I/AAAAAAAABfA/ZvRVITPfy5M/s400/coast+guard+cutter.jpg&quot; width=&quot;400&quot; alt=&quot;coast+guard+cutter.jpg&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/td&gt;&lt;/tr&gt;&lt;tr&gt;&lt;td&gt;&lt;span&gt;&lt;span&gt;&lt;i&gt;U.S. Coast Guard photo by Ensign Richard Russell)&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/td&gt;&lt;/tr&gt;&lt;/tbody&gt;&lt;/table&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&quot;There was a fifty-fifty chance that he could have made it&quot;, Angela told me in a phone call this afternoon. &quot;We were there in case he didn&#039;t.&quot; Thirteen miles offshore Mellor ditched the plane. A rescue helicopter hoisted him from the sea and delivered him to the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.hmc.hhsc.org/&quot;&gt;Hilo Medical Center&lt;/a&gt; emergency room.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;There were 11 airplane accidents in the United States last Friday. Nine on Thursday and 10 the day before that. You get my drift here, right? More than &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.faa.gov/data_research/accident_incident/preliminary_data/&quot;&gt;two dozen airplane crashes&lt;/a&gt; in less than a week but the one bouncing &#039;round the world is this one, courtesy of Coast Guard heroics, the internet and the extremely rare situation in which a pilot has advance notice that he is going down. Which is why poor Angela has been fielding calls right and left.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Who knows as this point why Mellor ran shy of fuel on a trans-Pacific ferry flight? &nbsp;His narrow escape is a reminder that beyond airliners there are other safety issues that also deserve attention. If this video helps accomplish that, the Coast Guard can claim another success.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;img width=&quot;1&quot; height=&quot;1&quot; src=&quot;https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9133703253863123050-3230262043591537116?l=christinenegroni.blogspot.com&quot; alt=&quot;&quot; /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/blogspot/CllGQ/~4/Gyt2gX8mUwg&quot; height=&quot;1&quot; width=&quot;1&quot; alt=&quot;Gyt2gX8mUwg&quot; /&gt;