Dear Sir,

There exists an uncanny coincidence of numerics involving Air Malaysia flight MH370 and EgyptAir flight MS804. There are exactly 804 days between the two flights vanishing.
EgyptAir flight MS804 was at flight level 370 (37,000 feet) when it vanished. Air Malaysia flight MH370 made last contact at 5.19pm. EgyptAir flight MS804 crashed on May 19, that is 19/5.
Both flights took puzzling erratic turns before disappearing from radar screens.
Despite conspiracy theories like these floating around, I still feel that flying is our safest mode of transport. Globally, there are 102,700 flights per day, equivalent to 37.5mn flights per year.
Terrorism in the air involved 86 incidents, 53 of them resulted in the deaths of at least 5,000 people. The first terrorist hijacking was in 1968.
We must remain resolute and defy the terrorists’ threats to bring commercial aviation to a halt.

Farouk Araie, farouk.araie@telkomsa.net

Boost security at all airports

Dear Sir,

The EgyptAir crash is a grim reminder of the fact that something is lacking with the safety standard at departure points of airports which need to heighten the scrutiny further.
The Airbus A320 carried 56 passengers and 10 crew members and security when it left Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris last Wednesday headed for Cairo. It crashed in the Mediterranean  early Thursday.
Airbus A320 has proven to be a very reliable medium-haul aircraft and there have been no major technical failures.
So it looks technical faults are unlikely to have been behind the EgyptAir crash.
Security has been tightened at all European airports, especially in Paris and Brussels, with stringent checks for departing passengers, after the recent terror strikes there.
Hence it will be a cause of considerable concern if it is proven that terrorism was behind the crash.
Some sources already suspect the crash was caused by an act of terror, but no group has come forward to claim responsibility.
An extensive safety and security audit must be carried out at all airports globally to find out if there are any lapses in security arrangements with them so that they could be corrected immediately.

Ramesh G Jethwani, (Address supplied)

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