SAFETY Not such an impressive record Your annual safety review (Flight International, 25-31 January) paints a glossy, "safety culture" picture. Yet luck seems to have played a major role in the low hull loss/death rate recorded in 2004. The World Airways McDonnel Douglas DC-10 with 252 people on board that lost nearly half its right elevator over the Atlantic on 10 April could have been another Sioux City - or worse. So could the Iberia Airbus A320 incident on 11 May, when the cowlings let fly and hit the tail fin. We nearly lost an Emirates Airbus A340 and its 224 souls at Johannesburg - that really was close. As was the KLM/Air Dolomiti runway incursion at Munich on 3 May, with nearly 200 people at risk. There were many other close calls: Nippon Cargo's Boeing 747 decompression due to structural tearing on 5 december could have been yet another freighter loss. Throw in events such as the Air Tran Airways Boeing 717 that had to return to Atlanta on 5 March because of an alert, the American Eagle ATR 72-200 which swerved off the runway at Puerto Rico on 9 May, runway incursions at Manchester and Tokyo, and so on, and it becomes obvious that (a) what we got away with in 2004 is very sobering; and (b) luck and good airmanship, saved the day. So are we really as safe as you suggest? Lance Cole Swindon, Wiltshire, UK

From the 8-14 February 2005 Flight International issue (Letters section)