Last night on the Italian National Geographic channel, I watched a reconstruction of the November 2011 American Airlines flight No. 587, in which 265 people lost their lives. At the time the cause seemed almost natural and unavoidable: The AA’s Airbus got caught by the turbulence that a JAL 747 left behind when taking off just before Flight 587.

I live close to Malpensa Airport, probably Italy’s second largest, after Rome’s Leonardo da Vinci, and one the most important European hubs. The aircraft industry is very important here, its birth going back to the early years of 1900.

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