Airline Sleuths Dig Up Data to Save Lives

Airlines and air safety investigators have a new way to snoop for clues that can help avoid future accidents, the Washington Post reports. While they once depended on crash remains for evidence, they have now gone digital, pursuing daily probes of thousands of computer records and pilots' reports to dig up data that can avert disaster.

Probers hope to expose potential “precursors”—problems that could spark an accident but would otherwise be neglected, such as a bump found on a Vermont runway. With no major US commercial crashes since 2006, some are calling the new method is effective. “There is no doubt that by using this data we have prevented an accident,” an appreciative pilot said. (More airline stories.)