You may travel to Scotland, and the Brit Isles, as a Friend of mine did with 3 daughters, recently. Or, you may hit Salt Lake, or wherever to gleen what you can in those precious moments of research, grave pix, etc. Some go by automobile, while others must use air travel. HOW SAFE IS AIR TRAVEL? is the Title of 4 page documentary, or info sheet, on just that subject! If I may, I would like to submit this info for what it is worth to us, keeping in mind the prejudice that may be inherent in it, but keeping in mind that we don't often get this kind of Information. So, below I shall attempt to synthsize the high points of the source in order to maintain my record of BREVITY on PSR, that you are used to seeing: AC=aircraft meg.=million How safe is airplane travel? More than 3 meg. people around the world fly safely on commercial AC every day. 1997, world's commercial jet airlines carried approx. 1.3 billion people 18 meg. flights, suffering only 11 fatal accidents. How often does serious accidents happen? The risk for commercial jet AC where multi-fatalities happen is approx. 1 in 3 meg. Even tho they are rare, the aviation community world-wide is continuing to work together to reduce that risk. So is flying getting safer or riskier? 30 yrs ago fatal acci's. on comm. jetliners occurred approx 1 in 140 meg. miles flown. TODAY it is 1.4 billion mi flown for every fatal acci. - a ten- fold safety improvement. What's the risk of flying compared to driving? In the U.S., 22 times safer than travel by car accdg. to 1993-95 study by U.S. Nat'l Safety Council comparing acci. fatalities per meg. passenger-mi. traveled. The nr. of U.S. hwy deaths in a typical 6 mo. period- abt 21,000- roughly equals all comm. jet fatalities worldwide since the dawn of jet aviation 4 decades ago. Fewer people died in comm AP acci's in America over the past 60 yrs than are killed in U.S. auto acci's. in a typical 3 month period. Accident-related deaths, U.S., 1996 (Source:U.S. Nat'l. Safety Council) colored "pie graph" shows Motor Vehicles 43,300, Jet Transport* 130 (*refers to the 1988-97 annual average, U.S. airlines). What's the riskiest portion of a flight? Takeoff & the climb to cruising altitude. Descent & landing of the AC are the 2 risk-prone periods of a flight. About 3/4 of all serious acci's occur during these 2 relatively brief phases of a flight. Where's the safest seat on a jet during a crash? There's no evidence that any 1 part of an AC is safer than another. How do travelers know if AC are being properly maintained? Emphasis on preventative maintenance. AC makers anticipate potential equipt. failures in the design of AC- incorporating in the AC redundant back-up safety systems for all key AC features. (for instance, computer systems - for every computer, there are 2 additional back ups that will take over upon failure, if it happened-CC.). (I won't attempt to spell out all the maintenance details, govt. regs. etc. but AC maintenance gets top priority, or the AC and the airlines that use them would not be permitted to operate with poor maintenance- CC.). Are some jets safer than others? No, egardless of the mftr.- same govt. regs. apply for safety standards. The AC itself has been identified as the pri. cause in only 10% of all serious jet acci's, accdg. to world-wide acci. data. Wordwide, more than 3 meg. people fly safelyh on commercial jets every day. How do jet mftrs promote aviation safety? Focus on safety issues. Design practices updated continually. Sophisticated testin & analysis. Thousands of hours of testing on ground & air before they can be certified to enter production. Every AC is flight-tested in detail before it can be delivered to an airline. Pilot training & maintenance personnel training is essential to each AC. Is there any way to make air travel safer? Over the past 15 to 20 yrs, all phases of flight safety has been enhanced. High- tech devices have been incorporated to warn and to respond to conditions that affect flight safety and maintenance. Satellite navigation systems, and communications have greatly surpassed former methods of flight data and feed-back of flight conditions and safety. What's being done to enhance global aviation safety? IATA, International Air Transport Assn., ICAO International Civil Aviation Organization, IFALPA International Federation of Airline Pilots Assns; Flight Safety Foundation, & others, all are working to reduce accident statistics. In the U.S. the FAA in conjunction with world airlines, govts, along with CAST Commercial Aviation Safety Team is working to achieve an 80% reduction in the rate of fatal commercial acci's over the next 10 yrs. END OF A SYNTHESIZED VERSION of How Save is Air Travel? info included with the latest issue of the Boeing News. FYI. * * ARTICLE: The Herald, Wed. Nov 18, 1998 The Northwest section p 3B, title: Logging off e-mail nuisances Anti-spam law targets unwanted material flooding computers By Hunter T. George Associated Press. OLYMPIA - (Rather than copy the whole articl I will quote the following portion, and make refs. - CC.)In the circa middle of the article I QUOTE: "Washington's new law doesn't prohibit commercial electronic messages. Instead, it prohibits e-mail that contains misleading header or subject line information or uses a third party's Internet domain name without permission. Individuals can recover up to $500 for each illegal e-mail.". At the end of the article is: Information about Washington's antispam law is available on the attorney general's Web site, loc at www.wa.gov/ago/junke-mail Information about the WAISP's e-mail registry is available at http://registry.waisp.org The law went into effect in June. WAISP = Washington Association of Internet Service Providers, as you may have anticipated. END OF QUOTED INFORMATION RE SPAM FROM HERALD, EVERETT, WA ARTICLE IN SMALL REFS TO PARTS OF ARTICLE ESSENTIAL TO ITEM & SITES FOR FURTHER FYI. Carroll of Snohomish. * * * 30 * * * ___________________________________________________________________ You don't need to buy Internet access to use free Internet e-mail. Get completely free e-mail from Juno at http://www.juno.com/getjuno.html or call Juno at (800) 654-JUNO [654-5866]