Safety in the Air

Words in Use (Lesson 21)

• plea
• weary
• collide
• confirm
• verify
• anticipate
• dilemma
• detour
• merit
• transmit
• relieve
• baffle

Read the following passage to see how the new words are used in it.
  
Safety in the Air
The most persistent* plea of weary pilots has always been for a machine that would warn them that they were about to collide with an oncoming airplane. Studies of landing patterns confirm that the number of collisions is increasing each year, and pilots verify hundreds of reports of near misses. Recently a system that would electronically anticipate oncoming airplanes was devised,* and the pilot's dilemma to dive or to climb, to detour to left or right, may be solved. The system has merit, though, only if every plane is equipped to transmit and receive a signal to and from an oncoming plane. But most aviation experts feel that only a system that watches every airplane in the sky will relieve a problem that tends to baffle every one who attempts to find a solution.