An Answer

After all the years of posing questions about one thing or another I finally have an answer today! A few years ago after returning from a flight on a new plane I wondered why they were still building planes with ashtrays as smoking in flight has been banned for over a decade. It took nearly 3 years (yes,I have been doing this blog that long!) for me to find the answer and it was an accident when I did find it. In 1973 a flight crashed killing 123 people,the cause was attributed to an improperly disposed of cigarette. The FAA decided that no matter what measures were in place some people would still be compelled to light up,so they passed a law requiring ashtrays to handle the outlaw smokers among us,better in an ashtray than a paper towel bin being the idea.