[avandonk]

Yes Peter lose the elevator and you are in deep do do's. At least you can ask your 400 odd passengers to run from the back of the aircraft to the front or vice versa to simulate an elevator. I am sure you can also pump fuel to change the balance. I still maintain the tail slide had nothing to do with it. If you lose your elevator control and it is even worse in a large aicraft as the worm can get jammed due to lack of maintenance and overcycling then only thrust can start to control your attitude. Too bad if to maintain some sort of level flight to attempt a landing full thrust is required.

The most important bit of your flight is what you check on the ground. That is all your pre flight checks.

All of us are still safer in an aircraft than even crossing a busy road.

We pilots read everything we can about aircraft crashes as it may give us some ideas to not go down in the same way.

I used to work with a senior scientist who was terrified of flying. He thought that paying pilots heaps of money was a good thing as it gave them a reason for living. So that way in his own irrational logic he sort of felt safer as long as he was flying with an airline with highly overpaid pilots.

Bert