Look, Down On the Ground! It's a Bird! It's a Plane! It's a Russian Airliner

Interesting news on the aviation front.  Russia's skies are officially the deadliest in the world.  Honest citizens can't leave their homes without being subjected to a steady rain of aeroplane parts as representatives of Russia's ageing airlines give up the struggle with gravity.  Russia's air safety record is apparently worse than that of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.  Excuse me?  The DRC isn't even a country, its a bloodbath with borders, yet somehow it does a better job of persuading aeroplanes to stay in the sky than Russia does.  Perhaps the Russians should cancel their space program and concentrate on an atmosphere program.  They will know they're successful when they can safely put a man on the ground near the arrival gates of another airport.  That's one small step for man, one giant leap for travel insurance.

Various reasons are suggested for this.  Certain officials point to incompetent, vodka sodden pilots.  Pilots, perhaps understandably, point out that the aircraft they are using are from the tail end of the Soviet Union and thus combine Soviet manufacturing standards with a thoroughly capitalist mindset when it comes to spending money on repairs and replacements.  As to which of the above opinions is correct I couldn't say but President Medvedev has promised to replace all the old Russian airliners within a year.  He hasn't made the same committment about the pilots.  One suspects that this might indicate where at least a majority of the problems lie.

But back to the Congo.  Let me give you an example of how dreadful a place the Democratic Republic of the Congo is to live in.  Since independence Congo's principle way of changing presidents has been for the incumbent to be murdered by his successor.  The current president has won two of the most thoroughly rigged elections in voting history and unleashed his private army on his only serious rival.  The economy is a shambles, the average life expectancy is shorter than the amount of holidays I have saved and the country was once invaded by Angola.  Now what makes the Democratic Republic of the Congo so bad is that the preceding isn't a description of it.  It's a description of the neighbouring Republic of Congo which is where people from the Democratic Republic of the Congo flee to in the hopes of leading a better life.  There are parts of the moon less hostile to human life than the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Yet now at least the population can raise their heads and gaze with pity upon Russian air travellers.  A country famous largely for exporting blood diamonds and changing its name more frequently than its government finally has something to be proud of.  Across the vast, blood spattered landscape the surviving population stands tall (briefly then ducks again to avoid being caught in a crossfire) throws out what would be their chests if they got enough to eat and strides proudly to the airport safe in the knowledge that there are worse places in the world to be an airline passenger than there.  Once they get to the airport of course they just turn around and go home because, let's face it, if they could afford an airline ticket they wouldn't still be in the country