Attention: Please take a moment to consider our terms and conditions before posting.

*FLYING*

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.
«13

Comments

  • Black Box Thinking by Matthew Syed goes into this a lot
  • 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 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?
  • 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! 
  • 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!
  • Sponsored links:


  • edited September 2020
    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.
  • 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.
  • 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. 
  • 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.

     
  • 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.
      
  • 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
  • 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...  
  • Sponsored links:


  • 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.
  • 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 😄
  • 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
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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
  • edited September 2020
    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.
Sign In or Register to comment.

Roland Out Forever!