Point of failure

The plane was late, but we’d made it.

Connections for some would be tight, but doable.

Cabin crew was ready to let us go.

And then the jetway broke down.

Four maintenance techs and 30 minutes later, the door opened.

Once upon a time, it was about nails and horseshoes, but the issue is the same: most systems have a single point of failure.

Could be a process, or a part.

A person, even.

There’s usually a workaround, like the emergency exit slides, but is that practical?

The time to decide that isn’t when the plane stops, it’s before that plane ever got in the air in the first place, when it was a gleam in a manufacturer’s eye.