Via the Poynter Institute, The Miami Herald has featured a series of deeply-researched stories on the air cargo industry, a business that has remained below the radar of public consciousness, but forms the backbone of the overnight delivery industry. Without significant oversight by the FAA, the industry employs young pilots (called "freight dogs" in the trade) to fly marginally-maintained planes far too many hours a week, often in bad weather at night for very low pay. The result is the loss of one pilot per month on the average. So far, a cargo plane has not crashed into a hospital or a hotel, so a crash usually involves the death of only one or two people. Sooner or later, however, a cargo plane is going to kill several hundred people in a single crash, at which point the public and Congress will demand stricter oversight, and Congress might possibly appropriate enough money to enable the FAA to perform the inspections it had the power to do all along. Until then, overworked, exhausted pilots will be flying old, questionably-maintained planes right over our homes every night. That ought to be enough to gain our attention.

Deadly Express: A Miami Herald Investigation Team Exclusive