How likely is a fatal accident in an airplane?

by cyberguy 22 Replies latest jw friends

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  safe4kids

  Safe,

  r u paying attention?

  Yeah, and now I'm thinking how nice it is here in Florida...who needs to go to Europe anyway?? Bunch of moldy old buildings and a palace or two, no big deal

  Dana
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  jack2

  I recently returned from a trip involving flying, and I tried to keep in mind the low risk compared with driving. Flying will always make me apprehensive though......there's just something about packing a tin can with people and luggage and then flying it at 39,000 feet that will always bother me.
• 

  LB

  It has to be safer than driving through town.

  Statistics are so easily changed around that I don't even consider them as a factor in making choices. But I feel flying is pretty darn safe. Even I was able to get a private pilots license when I was in my early 20's. And I wasn't sober all that often back then, still survived.
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  barry

  I used to have a private pilots licence LB here in aussie, good weather for flying here Barry
• 

  hurt

  There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics. - Mark Twain (?)
• 

  plmkrzy

  1 in 5,100 probability

  maybe they're basing it on if only one person was aboard each plane crash? Wait, that might be backwards.

  Oh I know, if 401 people are on a plane that crashes and 1 survives, then our odds will be 400 to 1 that we would die in a plane crash.

  Edited by - plmkrzy on 12 November 2002 6:11:37
• 

  safe4kids

  there's just something about packing a tin can with people and luggage and then flying it at 39,000 feet that will always bother me.

  Jack! That's exactly how I feel about flying; man, when I'm up there looking down and thinking about how high we all are with only a fragile metal shell around us.....yikes! It frights me somethin' fierce!

  Dana
• 

  Navigator

  Sentinel

  Sorry to tell you, but losing altitude quickly does not cause you to pass out. Losing cabin pressure at 39,000 ft for a few minutes will cause you to pass out if you don't have those little oxygen mask "danglees" coming down from the overhead rack. Not to worry, however, as the pilots have very good oxygen masks and will lose altitude quickly in order to keep the passengers conscious.

  Passenger mile stats can be a bit misleading. The only fair way to measure your chances of getting killed in an aviation accident would be to take the average number of people flying in a particular year divided into the average number of fatalities in aviation in a particular year(including deaths of people on the ground). The figures for commercial aviation will be much lower than those of general aviation. I doubt if either would even come close to the figure cited by the WT.

  In more than 4000 hours of military aviation, I only lost an engine one time. Not too big a concern since I was flying mostly 4 engine transports. Well, there were those 400 hours when folks were trying to shoot me down but that event is not common to the average passenger.
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  Sentinel

  Navigator, I always thought that losing altitude did cause a change in cabin pressure. But, then I'm not a pilot, and have only been a passenger. However, I know I would probably pass out anyway!

  If I'm going to die in a plane crash, I think I would rather just pass out, whether it be from lack of oxygen or pure terror. Hubby and I went to the Bahamas in one of those Bahamair planes. It was my second trip by plane. We hit a terrible storm and it was all around us. The stewardesses were flying around hitting the passengers and falling down, trying to give assistance, and put the luggage back, that kept falling out of the cubicles above our seats. (By the way, a few of those oxygen masks did drop, but not all of them.) I was petrified, as was everyone else. Some were screaming and crying (not me) of us were dizzy and nauseated. (hubbies arm is still sore to this day from me latching onto him and holding on for dear life.)

  It was like the lightening was all around us. The plane felt like it was hitting walls and bouncing off, bumping up and down and back and forth. The pilot had tried to get above it and then below it, but we were trapped and had to ride it out. The pilot gave his assistant the controls while he came out and talked to us and the stewardesses were going over what to do if a plane crashes, was frightening. (Especially because we were over water.) When we finally cleared the storm, everyone cheered, and we all had some free champagne prior to landing . Jack, I know exactly what you mean. They always say the odds are in our favor when we fly, but still, if a plane crashes, the odd's of surviving decline significantly. It always gets to me when I am on a plane, because I'm just "too observant". I notice loose seams, and cracks and missing screws, etc.

  Remember that plane crash in DC at the 14th street bridge, where they crashed into the water, and the helicopters were trying to pick folks that had survived out of the frozen water? My brother in law was scheduled to take that very flight, but gave up his seat at the last minute to someone else who needed it. My sister didn't know he made that last minute change, and when they made the announcement that his flight had crashed, she thought the worse. And, to top things off, he tried to contact her, but there were no phone lines available. So for hours, she was in limbo, trying to find out. Even the airline could not give her any information. We he finally got through to her, what a blessing that he was not killed. Apparently, the person who got his seat did not survive. That was very frightening for the whole family, and we were greatly relieved that he had changed to the next flight.
• 

  RunningMan

  I happen to be involved in road safety. In my province, approximately 165 persons are killed every year on our highways. This means that your odds of being killed in an auto accident are about 0.017% per year. During your lifetime, there is a 1.3% chance of being killed in an accident.

  To put it another way, approximately 1 in 80 persons will die in a car accident. Now, those are scary odds.

  According to the American Public Transportation Association, you are 21 times safer in an airplane (per passenger mile). Now, every person travels a different amount. Most people spend a lot more time in their cars than in planes.

  But, the bottom line is, if you have a choice of taking a cross country trip by plane or by car, and safety is your main concern, then you should definitely go by scheduled air.