The odds are, government crash investigators and Boeing's own experts will figure out what went wrong here.
But as a non-fatal accident, this case is getting major attention and for good reason. If an accident like this can happen, what else can happen?
Consider this: After 13 years of flying, the Boeing 777 has had a spotless safety record and is packed with safety technology. British Airways has long been considered one of the safest airlines with good maintenance and pilot training. And Heathrow Airport has the bells and whistles to get planes safely on the ground even in the stinkiest weather. (By the way, weather isn't looking like it's a factor here.) Every entity involved in this accident had the tools to prevent it... but it happened anyway.
The problem is that while your chances of being involved in a fatal airplane crash are extremely remote, they aren't absolutely zero.
Major airlines flying big jets in North America, Western Europe and Japan continue to enjoy an incredibly long spell of non-fatal flying. And fortunately, this event didn't go into the fatal column. These are the countries with the most advanced aviation systems.
It's been over six years since the last big crash in the U.S. Ironically, it came just a few months after 9/11 when an American Airlines Airbus 300 crashed into a residential neighborhood in Queens, New York on November 12, 2001. Two accidents in Canada and Japan were spectacular, but caused no deaths.
There is little doubt that new technologies like the Enhanced Ground Proximity Warning System have kept planes from crashing into mountains and other obstacles. The FAA and the nation's airports, including Sea-Tac, continue to work on improvements to prevent runway collisions. (By the way, runway incursions are considered a big worry area, and it's not the only one.)
But it's been quiet... almost too quiet. Consider that for most of modern aviation history, a handful of crashes each year was typical, even if it wasn't acceptable. After all, your odds were still far better flying across the country than they were driving to the airport.
I've had this conversation with air safety types for years. Just when it appears major flying fatalities are heading into the history books, something comes back to bite us... and it often comes in groups. It's kind of the old adage about bad things coming in threes.
Remember, your chances of dying in a crash aren't absolute zero. I'm not a statistician, but considering the thousands of flights that take off just in the U.S. each each day, it seems like all those smidgens of probability will eventually add up to disaster.
Could we see a cluster of crashes starting with today's episode in London? I hope not.
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