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The big issue was that ocean liners were the method of crossing the Atlantic for the rich and poor.

There was a strong sense of "That could have happened to me!", especially among the elite.

Imagine how terrified the tech community would be if a major accident at SFO killed 1000 people trying to get on or off flights.

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This almost happened last July[0] at SFO - an inbound Air Canada flight lined up against a taxiway (with five full flights on it, over 1000 people actually) instead of a runway, and missed the planes on the ground by about five vertical feet.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Canada_Flight_759#Incident

That article says "There was less than 14 feet (4.3 m) separation between the bottom of the Air Canada aircraft and the tail of the Airbus A340." That's still far too close, but it's more than five feet.

I got my figure from this part of the entry:

> AC759 reached a minimum altitude of 59 feet (18 m) above ground level, comparable to the 55 ft 10 in (17.02 m) tail height of a Boeing 787-9, two of which were on Taxiway C

I think what happened is that it reached that minimum, but not while directly above the tail of a 787. By the time it was directly above one of the 787s, it had gained another 9 feet.

But I could be wrong in my interpretation...

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