Are We Safe ?

If the recent spate of air crashes – Athens, Venezuela, Indonesia, Tunisia – were not enough to make us jumpy at the thought of boarding a plane, one only has to remember the brutal imprint left on out collective consciousness by the December 2003 Benin air crash in which at least 140 people – 80 of them Lebanese – lost their lives when a Beirut-bound, chartered Boeing 727 hit a building on takeoff and fell into the sea. The plane was reportedly overloaded and the pilot forced to take at the insistence of an overzealous Lebanese passenger (who, unfairly it might be added, survived the crash). Air safety, stories of badly run airlines and even more badly maintained planes have never been more in the news. However, while one aviation expert claims that safety regulations at Beirut airport are still shockingly lax, the director general of the civil aviation authority