*FLYING*

up_the_valley

Ok, the safest way to travel is what we're always told. But for me flying at 36,000 feet at 500mph in an aircraft laden with fuel petrifies me from the moment I board the plane. Yet most people I know feel no fear whatsoever. Watching 'Air Crash Investigation' no doubt doesn't help but I think i could quite happily never board a plane again.

randy andy

I find Air Crash Investigation massively reassuring. The identify not only the cause of the accident, but the chain of events and decisions that lead up to it. Then the industry takes that information and adapts itself to prevent a repeat. 

With car crashes for instance the same chain of events happen again and again, yet next to nothing is done to prevent those things happening.

For example, an episode last night was about a crash in 1972, and it lead to major changes in the way flight crews are trained and how they operate within the aircraft. 

There's no other part of my life where there is such a culture of identifying safety issues and making positive changes to address them. That is why the airline industry has such a sensational safety record.

Just compare, 2 737 Max' crashed, every single one was grounded. 1 Concorde crashed, the entire fleet was geounded. Ford sold the Pinto for years, despite everybody knowing it was a death trap. Renault sold the model 4 for over a decade, despite tests showing a rear impact at 40 miles an hour could send the engine block (it was rear engined) through the passenger compartment killing or maiming all passengers.

rina

Black Box Thinking by Matthew Syed goes into this a lot

swords_alive

Horrific way to go. If it doesn't explode mid-air you'll crash and possibly burn, or be lost at sea. Some have even disappeared without trace. I wouldn't call it a sensational safety record either, when the unknown is an ever-present, for instance; shot down over a war zone (Ukraine), or on take off (during tensions, Iran/ US), pilot or co-pilot going crazy (Austrian mountain crash), to name a few incidents.

Then there's the commercial pressures; super fast turn-around times of the budget aircraft where safety checks are curtailed, rapid development shortcuts of aircraft (Boing), tired pilots and crew, lack of training for crews (737 Max). No thanks. Glad to see the back of the industry.  

randy andy

Statistically, if you took a flight everyday it would be 250,000 years before you were involved in an incident and then there's only a 1 in 8 chance of dying. Compared to every other form of transport that is truly sensational.

You're 3.5x as likely to die in a train as in a plane, over 100x more likely to die in your car, and that's assuming you travel the same distance. I usually get away once or twice a year, so probably average around between 2k and 10k miles a year by plane. I do 20k+ miles in my car, so I'm 200 to 1000 times more likely to die in a car compared to a plane.

up_the_valley

swords_alive said:

Horrific way to go. If it doesn't explode mid-air you'll crash and possibly burn, or be lost at sea. Some have even disappeared without trace. I wouldn't call it a sensational safety record either, when the unknown is an ever-present, for instance; shot down over a war zone (Ukraine), or on take off (during tensions, Iran/ US), pilot or co-pilot going crazy (Austrian mountain crash), to name a few incidents.

Then there's the commercial pressures; super fast turn-around times of the budget aircraft where safety checks are curtailed, rapid development shortcuts of aircraft (Boing), tired pilots and crew, lack of training for crews (737 Max). No thanks. Glad to see the back of the industry.  

The thing for me is if something goes wrong in a car, whether mechanical or human error it usually results in a small prang or you break down and pull over. On a plane the small mistakes can be catastrophic. Also helicopters are even more ridiculous machines.

Fumbluff

I’ve already been in a plane crash so if you take me with you (best be somewhere nice) then it pushes it out to 500,000 years (probably)

up_the_valley

Fumbluff said:

I’ve already been in a plane crash so if you take me with you (best be somewhere nice) then it pushes it out to 500,000 years (probably)

Are you being serious?

Fumbluff

Yep, flew back from Jersey about 15-yrs ago and whilst the pilot was parking up (tiny little wind-up plane) he clipped wings with an empty plane.
We were all kept on board forever for reports/inspections/probably breath tests etc. 

Still counts though so ner!

swords_alive

Stats and averages are all very well at one level randy andy. It's those specific moments that do for a plane, like a bird strike for instance. Then there's all the near misses, the vast majority of which will never be made known or publicised. On some occasions there will be 'near death' experiences, some truly terrifying no doubt, which may or may not make an air drama or documentary type program.

It's probably the most alienating and unnatural mode of transport so far invented, shrouded in a rich ideology of 'safety' mostly owing to vested interests. Those vacuum tubes that Musk is developing (the Hyperloop) holds more promise for me, not that i'm gagging to travel anywhere at great speed for any purpose! 

up_the_valley

swords_alive said:

Stats and averages are all very well at one level randy andy. It's those specific moments that do for a plane, like a bird strike for instance. Then there's all the near misses, the vast majority of which will never be made known or publicised. On some occasions there will be 'near death' experiences, some truly terrifying no doubt, which may or may not make an air drama or documentary type program.

It's probably the most alienating and unnatural mode of transport so far invented, shrouded in a rich ideology of 'safety' mostly owing to vested interests. Those vacuum tubes that Musk is developing (the Hyperloop) holds more promise for me, not that i'm gagging to travel anywhere at great speed for any purpose! 

I agree. Whilst improvements are made and knowledge is gained after each incident, the changes made seem very reactive as apposed to proactive. Like you've alluded to airlines have encouraged pilots to fly beyond there hours and make extra return journeys. Why? To save money!

randy andy

swords_alive said:

Stats and averages are all very well at one level randy andy. It's those specific moments that do for a plane, like a bird strike for instance. Then there's all the near misses, the vast majority of which will never be made known or publicised. On some occasions there will be 'near death' experiences, some truly terrifying no doubt, which may or may not make an air drama or documentary type program.

It's probably the most alienating and unnatural mode of transport so far invented, shrouded in a rich ideology of 'safety' mostly owing to vested interests. Those vacuum tubes that Musk is developing (the Hyperloop) holds more promise for me, not that i'm gagging to travel anywhere at great speed for any purpose! 

Unreported near misses? You can read reports of every single loss of separation event (when planes are less than 1.5 miles apart in the air). You are really talking from a place of fear rather than quantifiable fact. Airline reporting is far far better than car travel. I witness daily near misses on our roads every day. It's a natural response, you feel safer in a car because you're in control (despite having far less training than any pilot) and on the ground (though planes have far less trouble with psychotic other drivers), but the facts just don't back you up.

Plus the vast majority of bird strikes result in nothing more than the plane having to land again, you only hear about the rare fatal ones and you get confirmation bias. There's actually only been 5 major accidents (i.e.planes lost) to bird strikes since 1975.

golfaddick

Never given it a moments thought tbh. Have to say that I havent flown for about 10 years, but before then I've done Europe, The West Indies, Canada & even Australia. As pp said, driving in a car is far far more dangerous than getting on a plane. Very very few planes collide with each other whereas in a car you are only seconds and metres away from another car, and mid morning on the M25 you could both be doing 80mph. 

Watched the film Sully last week with Tom Hanks as the pilot who landed a 737 on the Hudson River. Shows that even under extreme circumstances a stricken plane can be landed safely. There was also a recent program about crashing an empty jumbo jet in the desert just do they could see exactly what happens in a crash. Even without a pilot (but with someone guiding it down to a few thousand feet) a plane can survive a crash landing.

One great things with planes (as Air Crash Investigators shiws) is that because of black box recorders the airline industry can learn from a crash & modify or eliminate errors. With a car crash investigation a lot is down to he said/she said.

up_the_valley

golfaddick said:

Never given it a moments thought tbh. Have to say that I havent flown for about 10 years, but before then I've done Europe, The West Indies, Canada & even Australia. As pp said, driving in a car is far far more dangerous than getting on a plane. Very very few planes collide with each other whereas in a car you are only seconds and metres away from another car, and mid morning on the M25 you could both be doing 80mph. 

Watched the film Sully last week with Tom Hanks as the pilot who landed a 737 on the Hudson River. Shows that even under extreme circumstances a stricken plane can be landed safely. There was also a recent program about crashing an empty jumbo jet in the desert just do they could see exactly what happens in a crash. Even without a pilot (but with someone guiding it down to a few thousand feet) a plane can survive a crash landing.

One great things with planes (as Air Crash Investigators shiws) is that because of black box recorders the airline industry can learn from a crash & modify or eliminate errors. With a car crash investigation a lot is down to he said/she said.

Of course there is much more room up there, and each plane is logged and guided.

SomervilleAddick

up_the_valley said:

swords_alive said:

Horrific way to go. If it doesn't explode mid-air you'll crash and possibly burn, or be lost at sea. Some have even disappeared without trace. I wouldn't call it a sensational safety record either, when the unknown is an ever-present, for instance; shot down over a war zone (Ukraine), or on take off (during tensions, Iran/ US), pilot or co-pilot going crazy (Austrian mountain crash), to name a few incidents.

Then there's the commercial pressures; super fast turn-around times of the budget aircraft where safety checks are curtailed, rapid development shortcuts of aircraft (Boing), tired pilots and crew, lack of training for crews (737 Max). No thanks. Glad to see the back of the industry.  

The thing for me is if something goes wrong in a car, whether mechanical or human error it usually results in a small prang or you break down and pull over. On a plane the small mistakes can be catastrophic. Also helicopters are even more ridiculous machines.

I’m sure things go wrong on planes without anything serious happening. I was on a transatlantic flight out of Heathrow when they couldn’t get the flaps to raise after takeoff. Flew around for 4 hours to burn off fuel and then landed. Only problem was it was the last flight of the day, so had to stay until next morning before we could leave. 

swords_alive

randy andy said:

swords_alive said:

Stats and averages are all very well at one level randy andy. It's those specific moments that do for a plane, like a bird strike for instance. Then there's all the near misses, the vast majority of which will never be made known or publicised. On some occasions there will be 'near death' experiences, some truly terrifying no doubt, which may or may not make an air drama or documentary type program.

It's probably the most alienating and unnatural mode of transport so far invented, shrouded in a rich ideology of 'safety' mostly owing to vested interests. Those vacuum tubes that Musk is developing (the Hyperloop) holds more promise for me, not that i'm gagging to travel anywhere at great speed for any purpose! 

Unreported near misses? You can read reports of every single loss of separation event (when planes are less than 1.5 miles apart in the air). You are really talking from a place of fear rather than quantifiable fact. Airline reporting is far far better than car travel. I witness daily near misses on our roads every day. It's a natural response, you feel safer in a car because you're in control (despite having far less training than any pilot) and on the ground (though planes have far less trouble with psychotic other drivers), but the facts just don't back you up.

Plus the vast majority of bird strikes result in nothing more than the plane having to land again, you only hear about the rare fatal ones and you get confirmation bias. There's actually only been 5 major accidents (i.e.planes lost) to bird strikes since 1975.

I don't think i'm speaking from a 'place of fear', rather a different approach to risk perhaps, and scepticism of the official stats. 'Only 5 major accidents owing to bird strikes'  is a good example of how our perspectives differ. That actually gives weight to my case, but I would say that, i know. 

There's plenty of ways of measuring near misses, and the criteria of planes being close to each other is just convention isn't it? In actuality we will never know how many planes 'just made it' to their destination; there's too much complexity, so the industry keeps it simple, and that's understandable from an operational, customer assurance point of view. It's simply the fact that a plane arrives that gets counted as a plus in the safety record and for me that's not enough for my risk appetite.

 

Anna_Kissed

Another view... 
Whether you enjoy it, are terrified - yet live to tell the tale -, die in mid-air, or on land, or in the sea... the plane you're on is polluting the skies and the air that we breathe.
Is your journey necessary? In all likelihood... probably not.

Danepak

randy andy said:

Statistically, if you took a flight everyday it would be 250,000 years before you were involved in an incident and then there's only a 1 in 8 chance of dying. Compared to every other form of transport that is truly sensational.

You're 3.5x as likely to die in a train as in a plane, over 100x more likely to die in your car, and that's assuming you travel the same distance. I usually get away once or twice a year, so probably average around between 2k and 10k miles a year by plane. I do 20k+ miles in my car, so I'm 200 to 1000 times more likely to die in a car compared to a plane.

  

SporadicAddick

There is some remarkable nonsense on this thread. If you don't like flying that's fine. The stats suggest its an irrational fear, but it is nevertheless a fear many have. However, to base that fear on some sort of "understanding" of a corrupt industry needs challenging.  

"the safest way to travel is what we're always told". This isn't a conspiracy, it's factually correct. There is an average of one fatality for every 287 million passengers carried by UK operators. This can be compared with a one in 19 million chance of being struck and killed by lightning in the UK or a one in 17,000 chance of being killed in a road accident. (stats from CAA - UK only, but the stats wouldn't, I would suggest, change materially for any other country).

"super fast turn-around times of the budget aircraft where safety checks are curtailed". Quick turnaround times and aeroplane utilisation is the basis on which the industry survives, but it is never at the expense of safety. Funnily enough the people that would never allow this to happen, even if an airline encouraged it (which they don't) are the pilots... 

"Glad to see the back of the industry." Fortunately for the global economy, global connectivity and the millions of jobs that depend on it, it's not going anywhere. 

"On a plane the small mistakes can be catastrophic". Rare. Aeroplanes have multiple levels of redundancy built into every system and action. 

"Then there's all the near misses, the vast majority of which will never be made known or publicised". Every "near miss" is known about, reported on, and published. 

"shrouded in a rich ideology of 'safety' mostly owing to vested interests. Nonsense.

"airlines have encouraged pilots to fly beyond there hours and make extra return journeys. Why? To save money!" Airlines are commercial businesses, but safe operations are the number one objective of every airline, underpinned by being the most regulated industry at every stage of operation (including pilot and cabin crew rest regulations). Safety is simply not compromised. 

"In actuality we will never know how many planes 'just made it' to their destination; there's too much complexity, so the industry keeps it simple". The opposite is true in both cases.

None of the above obviates the challenge of every incident and accident, which thankfully, because of the level of regulation and process built into the industry and its operations, is rare.

The 737 Max8 situation is not unique in terms of the development of new technology (look up the launch of the British de Havilland Comet and it's square windows) and flying will become, once again, even safer because of the lessons learned from two tragic incidents. However (and this may well be a case in point) if you think commercial interest and industry obfuscation trumps safety, Boeing's £15 billion plus impact (so far) and the grounding of those aircraft for nearly a year tells a slightly different story. If there is any evidence that Boeing willingly and knowingly compromised safety in the development of the aircraft, then Boeing will be no more. However, I doubt that this will be the case (this is an interesting legal review; https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=51ad035f-87fa-42da-bd00-3bb76e1017ee

If you want to understand a bit more about the airline industry and its regulation, the following is a good start point. https://www.caa.co.uk/Consumers/Guide-to-aviation/Aviation-safety/

EDIT - re my point on Boeing and commercial interest, Bods point below and my subsequent link may change my view. However, my analysis above in relation to airline operators (rather than manufacturers), remains true, and flying remains safe relative to all other forms of mass transport).

Bods64

Agree with your excellent summary regarding air safety and the like.. however I thought you might like to read the rather damning indictment from the Democratic House committee :https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/16/business/boeing-737-max-house-report.html

SporadicAddick

Bods64 said:

Agree with your excellent summary regarding air safety and the like.. however I thought you might like to read the rather damning indictment from the Democratic House committee :https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/16/business/boeing-737-max-house-report.html

Thanks, the attached was released yesterday so is timely (there is also a link to the full 245 page report)

https://transportation.house.gov/news/press-releases/after-18-month-investigation-chairs-defazio-and-larsen-release-final-committee-report-on-boeing-737-max

Boeing and the FAA in the cross hairs and rightly so - it will be interesting to see how these findings play out as they suggest that, counter to my point above, there was a degree to which commercial interest took precedent, and regulation wasn't strong enough to challenge what was happening...  

MrOneLung

Anna_Kissed said:

Another view... 
Whether you enjoy it, are terrified - yet live to tell the tale -, die in mid-air, or on land, or in the sea... the plane you're on is polluting the skies and the air that we breathe.
Is your journey necessary? In all likelihood... probably not.

Have a day off mate. 

Every flight I have ever taken is necessary. Mainly because it has gotten me to where I want to go. 

Do us all a favour and stop wasting electricity and keep off the internet 

i_b_b_o_r_g

Got a late-onset massive phobia of flying, even get sweaty palms dropping people off at the airport.

Because of this, I only fly when I'm saving the pandas.

LargeAddick

golfaddick said:

Never given it a moments thought tbh. Have to say that I havent flown for about 10 years, but before then I've done Europe, The West Indies, Canada & even Australia. As pp said, driving in a car is far far more dangerous than getting on a plane. Very very few planes collide with each other whereas in a car you are only seconds and metres away from another car, and mid morning on the M25 you could both be doing 80mph. 

Watched the film Sully last week with Tom Hanks as the pilot who landed a 737 on the Hudson River. Shows that even under extreme circumstances a stricken plane can be landed safely. There was also a recent program about crashing an empty jumbo jet in the desert just do they could see exactly what happens in a crash. Even without a pilot (but with someone guiding it down to a few thousand feet) a plane can survive a crash landing.

One great things with planes (as Air Crash Investigators shiws) is that because of black box recorders the airline industry can learn from a crash & modify or eliminate errors. With a car crash investigation a lot is down to he said/she said.

I’ve been in a car with Golfie driving numerous times and I’ll take my chance in a plane anytime ;-))

SuedeAdidas

Never been in a plane crash - but did have a very late aborted landing and fly around at Gatwick a few years ago (coming back from 2-2 draw at Middlesbrough incidentally). 

It was pretty scary. Pilot just calmly announced that it was due to another plane being on the runway.....so god knows how that happened?!?

Also has a very hard landing in high winds in NY. Was with a mate.....and although he denies it, we were definitely holding hands at some stage 😄

i_b_b_o_r_g

Had a mate who flew out on a seperate flight to anther mate's stag do in Vegas. Apparently they had to fly through a sandstorm and everyone was asked to get into crach positions and put the oxygen masks on....

https://youtu.be/a5QBuJla5do

JaShea99

Unless you’ve genuinely had a bad experience, I’ve never understood adults who are afraid of flying. As others have said, the statistics speak for themselves.

SporadicAddick

SuedeAdidas said:

Never been in a plane crash - but did have a very late aborted landing and fly around at Gatwick a few years ago (coming back from 2-2 draw at Middlesbrough incidentally). 

It was pretty scary. Pilot just calmly announced that it was due to another plane being on the runway.....so god knows how that happened?!?

Also has a very hard landing in high winds in NY. Was with a mate.....and although he denies it, we were definitely holding hands at some stage 😄

very common occurence and part of normal operations - the crew will have discussed and defined the go-around route as part of landing preparations. Very easy for the plane in front to miss their turning off the runway, meaning the incoming aircraft has to go around. I've had a few including two at Cork airport (always windy there) and one on an A380 coming into Dubai - given the size of those things the power generated was something else.

Baldybonce

My father in law was a pilot then test pilot for Air India. He always said “ there is nothing to fear when flying but crashing is a bit of a bugger”

It works in an Indian accent.

i_b_b_o_r_g

JaShea99 said:

Unless you’ve genuinely had a bad experience, I’ve never understood adults who are afraid of flying. As others have said, the statistics speak for themselves.

You don't understand people getting jittery about being 35000ft up in the air, in a 80 ton air craft going 600mph?

Surely that's got t o be one of the most easy to understand phobias?

Cue the "you're more likely to get run over by a bus" comparisons

Big_Bad_World

You are at your most vulnerable point as a passenger when on the ground. It's the most loss effective phase of travelling in an aircraft.