Author: John Cox, Special to USA TODAY

Planes making a sideways landing in a strong crosswind make for remarkable videos. How does the airplane handle the added stress of such landings?

Now that rearview cameras are standard equipment on economy cars, it seems like pilots should be able to see behind the plane and power back.

While they look confusing to the layperson the pilots know exactly what each one does and how it is to be used.

With modern airplanes and well-trained pilots and ground staff, we fly safely in challenging conditions every winter.

Ferry flights often use remote airfields for refueling. For the North Atlantic, flights may include fuel stops in Canada, Greenland and Iceland.

The Digital Flight Data and Cockpit Voice recorders have proven to be very successful over the decades.

Airlines flew nearly 4.5 billion passengers on nearly 45 million flights worldwide, both records. But there were 15 accidents worldwide.

Pilots fly many different airplanes of the same model within a fleet. While there are some differences, they fly pretty much the same.