We just hit a record for aviation safety, but the headlines are still full of airline missteps. Peter and Ask the Pilot’s Patrick Smith rehash some of the latest and the greatest travel mishaps.

Patrick Smith: Something serious happened recently that went unnoticed in the press: November 12 was the 10^th anniversary of the crash of American Airlines Flight 587. It was a terrible catastrophe, but it also was the last large-scale crash involving a large U.S. airline. Since then there have been several terrible accidents involving regional planes, but for the major carriers, it has been 10 years without a large-scale crash.

Ten years is the longest streak in aviation history without a large-scale crash.

The major airlines have been catastrophe-free, which is interesting in light of the carriers’ financial woes. Over the past 10 years, five major carriers went bankrupt. Despite all this, they’ve maintain this impeccable record, and its gone all but unnoticed. Through better training and better technology, we’ve engineered out what used to be the most common causes of accidents. And yes, we’ve been lucky too.

Peter Greenberg: No doubt about it. I give credit where credit’s due.

But the absence of an accident should never presume the presence of safety. We have to maintain this level of safety now on despite all the economic challenges.

PS: True. We shouldn’t rest on our laurels. We need to be proactive and keep this streak going as long as we can.

PG: Speaking of safety, what do you think about the pilot trapped inside the bathroom while the copilot’s circling above LaGuardia? You can’t make this up.

PS: When this story first broke, I rolled my eyes, but having heard the details on the whole incident, I think they actually handled it pretty well. What’s the protocol if you’re a pilot and you’re trapped in a lavatory? Well, there isn’t one. It comes down to common sense; if the door’s really jammed, you break out of there.

The problem was the passenger, who started knocking on the cockpit door, attempting to explain to the first officer and a flight attendant up front what was going on. Presumably he was just trying to help out, but you can’t blame them for being suspicious of someone with a foreign accent in this situation. Eventually the captain got out and the situation was resolved. I don’t think this should have been in the news, but no real surprise that it was.

PG: It’s no surprise this became news because people pull out their cell phones and it goes viral. It was certainly an entertaining story, we’ll give it that, right?

PS: Let’s change gears again and talk about this charter flight in central Europe where the passengers literally had to go off the plane, and go to ATM machines to get about $200 each to pony up $30,000 to buy fuel so they could leave!

PG: Believe it or not, this is not the first time this has happened. It reminds me of another story from 1985. During the highjacking of the TWA plane to Beirut, they got on the ground in Beirut and have to refuel and nobody had any money, except for a flight attendant who had her regular Shell credit card that she used to get gas, which they used to refuel the plane.

PS:  That hijacking was an amazing story all the way around. So many Americans have forgotten about that odyssey, but Google it. Do some reading about it because that was absolutely remarkable what happened.  The TWA odyssey was in 1985. It was part of what I like to call “the golden age of air crimes.” Back then there were hijackings, bombings and airport attacks. You know we worry about it so much more today, but these things actually were much more common years ago.

PG: They certainly were. In 1979, I went down to Cuba to interview Castro. During this time people were hijacking planes to Cuba all the time. I found out that deep in the heart of Havana, there was an old hotel, called the Hijack Hotel. It was where Castro took all the hijackers and made them live! And I actually found the hotel! I went in and there were all these crazy Americans sitting around playing games of hearts. It was totally bizarre. Straight out of Fellini.

Do you feel safer flying today?  What do you think of the golden age of air crimes?

Want more travel missteps and safety information? Check out:

• this week’s Icarus Award for more about the locked in pilot or the plane without gas
• our Icarus Awards series has this year’s best travel missteps
• Patrick Smith on the Security Industrial Complex Post 9/11
• the plane crash archives for complete information about past incidents

By Peter Greenberg for Peter Greenberg Worldwide Radio