Last Week’s Tragic Plane Crash Was a Long Time Coming

In the days since an American Airlines flight collided with a Black Hawk helicopter over the Potomac River, killing dozens, there’s this one fact I can’t stop thinking about: It’s been 15 years since a crash like this has happened. Fifteen years ago, the iPhone was essentially brand-new. Barack Obama had just been elected president. It seems like a lifetime ago. And that means a couple of things: First, we haven’t responded as a country to a big, random accident like this in a while. But it also means: Some experts had been waiting for this moment. Dreading it.