ABSTRACT
Most of us in the business of flying airplanes easily recognize the narrow-minded, myopic approach to safety that is captured here, and the historically aware might also recognize a Victorian tone that dates the original construction of this axiom back to World War I or slightly earlier. The authors could easily dismiss it as quaint. But they think that too quick a dismissal underestimates the impact that this axiom has had on the history of our own work in safety and the paradigms that go with that work. Rather, a careful unpacking of the axiom is worth taking some time to do. There are probably some pretty deep cultural undercurrents at work in this axiom. It is hard to overlook that tone, which subtly flavors the accident as a fall from grace, suggesting that whether an airplane crashes or not is largely a matter of free will.
