Collision Course; by Alvin Moscow.

The Classic Story of the Collision of the Andrea Doria and the Stockholm.

True story of a collision of two ships - which often almost happens, or used to before global positioning and satellites and computers. Andrea Doria was the pride of Italy, while the Swedes were equally and justifiably proud of their own competence of boat building and navigating. The Swedish boat that Andrea Doria happened to ram into was in fact correct in its course and maneuvers when they realised they were too close while Andrea Doria turning towards land rather than as would have been correct to her left was a natural mistake, human tendency to turn to land when in danger.

With all the horrifying details what remains most prominent in memory is the little girl whom the other boat took - cot, bed, and all - clean out on its own deck as it sliced through her cabin. She woke up with no idea of what had happened, safe on the other boat, while her family perished.

And with all the possible care they can take with GPS and so forth, planes still do get too close for comfort sometimes - I remember reading a story about a near mishap of this sort avoided due to a persistent feeling of something wrong in the pilot's mind, an inexplicable intuition that pilots have come to respect by experience. This particular one after fiddling with everything and checking on all possible details realised he was a few feet away from his designated altitude, corrected it, and a few minutes later froze as a plane approached on a direct collision course - or what would have been one if he had not corrected the altitude.

This book also mentions towards the end another such encounter of two ships almost colliding and passing with a far too little margin finally in dark, emerging out of fog, some time after the Andrea Doria collision. And that this is not uncommon - too close a passing for comfort or safety, that is.

One has to admire Heathrow for the precision with which they manage the thick traffic without incident, and through London weather, too.