Lucy’s crash course in risk

Doors to manual labour. Hard not to feel a twinge of frustration with former BA stewardess Lucy sergeant (right). she is suing her old bosses for £750,000 after an engine fire on board her flight from London to oslo caused a crisis situation, as they say. After this, she developed a fear of flying and had to give up her job. It must have been awful. Utterly petrifying! But surely Lucy’s training must have alerted her to the possibility of such an emergency?

Years ago, I took part in a cabin crew recruitment day for research purposes. We were told we all needed to be able to swim, in case we crashed in the sea. An eager hand went up. ‘What happens if we crash on land?’ asked someone — but answer came there none. My point being that after surviving a fire at 35,000ft, I would count myself lucky, not aggrieved.

of course, Lucy sergeant is perfectly within her rights to take this course of action. But none of the 75 traumatised passengers has sued, nor have other members of her crew.

And I had always imagined that fear of flying was a state of mind that could be overcome. However, in our risk-averse culture, it seems that everyone wants to be compensated for every bump in the road or bit of turbulence on the long haul flight from Cradle to Grave.

Life can be terrifying. There is risk everywhere, which is what makes living so wonderful.