Why Airplanes Crash

I’ll preface this by saying I’ve never gotten a parking ticket before. I’ve also never broken a bone before (though I did sprain a finger once). By any measure (or at least those two) I’ve led a sheltered life.

I didn’t break any bones today, but this morning I did get a parking ticket. Here’s how it happened:

I stopped at the post office in downtown Takoma Park, Maryland on the way into the office. It’s street parking only, and this morning there was only one space. I pulled in. Since I just needed to run in for a moment and there was no line (I could see through the window) I figured a nickel would do for the meter. I pocketed a nickel from my dash holder, go out, reflexively locked my door. Only to find that this meter, unlike any other on the block (where I have parked many times), only took quarters. Now at this point you’re thinking I just decided to scr*w it and pop on into the PO. Nope. I walked back around to the other side of my car, unlocked the door, and reached in to replace the nickel and get a quarter from the dash holder (even though such an expenditure seemed excessive). Just then a woman two spaces ahead got into her car and pulled away from the curb, vacating the spot (which I could see had the regular meter). So, I started ‘er up, pulled out of my spot and into the new one, got out, reflexively locked the door, and walked over to the meter—only to find I had forgotten I had already replaced the nickel in my pocket with a quarter, and was thus faced with the prospect of either feeding a quarter into the meter (when I knew a nickel would suffice) or walking back around to the other side of my car, unlocking the door, reaching in, and getting the nickel back. This was when I decided to scr*w it. I ducked inside, concluded my business at the counter, and re-emerged—not three minutes later—only to find a crisp pink slip under the wiper.

And this, my friends, is why airplanes crash, at least in many cases: a chain of unlikely and improbable events, all combining to produce a catastrophic outcome that would have been avoided had statistical normalcy intervened at any point to break the chain and restore equilibrium.