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Id rather be in a terrible car accident than what is shown in the link. the thought of being in a plane still flying with no nose or pilots sticks in my mind forever
I understand what you are saying - but that's just a feeling. If I were to die I'd want to die on earth rather than air. But if you talk about which one is safer - it's not the same thing at all! You seem to be biased by the fact that every time there is a crash and people die - you hear about it. Do you hear about every auto related death?
How can you feel safer driving on freeways with so many morons? Air travel simply has an advantage that they don't have to deal with morons around them. It's got to be safer. I am sure if I was the only one driving on interstate with no one in view it would be much safer
Air travel is obviously safer. Apart from the statistical FACT that it is safer than driving, you have to consider this: aircraft are maintained on a regular schedule by trained technicians. It is piloted by two or more heavily trained crew. The entire trip is guided by trained ATC personnel. Compare this to driving - you have amateurs piloting hulks of steel moving at 80 mph. YOU may be a good driver, but on every trip, you run into hundreds of strangers whose driving history and vehicle maintenance history you have no idea about. Do you seriously think driving is safer? When we purchased a rural home, one of the most important factors was that the route leading to the city was a divided, twinned highway. We rejected many homes that were accessible only by undivided highways. Most people don't give enough attention to the very high statistical likelihood of being involved in a car crash.
2. I'm in a plane and upon decending the pilot discovers the landing gear isnt opening up in which case YOU'RE TOTALLY SCREWED!!! Now there are procedures for such a thing but they are very risky which can lead to a crash/explosion/etc upon landing.
Statistically there are faaar fewer plane crashes but when a plane does crash it usually comes with everyone on board dying.
No, you're not "TOTALLY SCREWED!!!!" I have personally witnessed gear up landings with my own eyes at least half a dozen times, on aircraft ranging from a 172RG to a Piaggio P-180 to an A320. There were no injuries in any of these, and certainly no deaths.
It's a common misconception that when a plane goes down, it's always an unsurvivable catastrophe. The fact is, most plane crashes take place on or near a runway, and at a shallow angle, making them often survivable. In fact, more people are often injured trying to use the slides to escape the aircraft than are injured in the crash itself.
No, you're not "TOTALLY SCREWED!!!!" I have personally witnessed gear up landings with my own eyes at least half a dozen times, on aircraft ranging from a 172RG to a Piaggio P-180 to an A320. There were no injuries in any of these, and certainly no deaths.
Exactly. As I commented earlier...
Quote:
Originally Posted by OpenD
This popular misconception is based on widespread ignorance of the facts. In point of fact, in an average year a few crashes, somewhere in the world, kill all the passengers. Since these are the ones that get all the news coverage, people understandably come to think of that as the norm, when it is not. In truth, the statistics prove that...
95.7% of the passengers in all plane crashes survive.
Quote:
It's a common misconception that when a plane goes down, it's always an unsurvivable catastrophe. The fact is, most plane crashes take place on or near a runway, and at a shallow angle, making them often survivable. In fact, more people are often injured trying to use the slides to escape the aircraft than are injured in the crash itself.
Agreed! I feel much safer on the ground, regardless of what the statistics say. And I think the statistics might be a little skewed, because they compare travel miles I believe. And jets traveling at 600 MPH obviously travel each mile faster than cars traveling 65 MPH, so naturally, traveling by car exposes you to more drive time than traveling by air. But is that best way to compare air travel to car travel?
When you compare the amount of training required to pilot a plane and to drive a car....I would rather be in the air while traveling.
Air travel is obviously safer. Apart from the statistical FACT that it is safer than driving, you have to consider this: aircraft are maintained on a regular schedule by trained technicians. It is piloted by two or more heavily trained crew. The entire trip is guided by trained ATC personnel. Compare this to driving - you have amateurs piloting hulks of steel moving at 80 mph. YOU may be a good driver, but on every trip, you run into hundreds of strangers whose driving history and vehicle maintenance history you have no idea about. Do you seriously think driving is safer? When we purchased a rural home, one of the most important factors was that the route leading to the city was a divided, twinned highway. We rejected many homes that were accessible only by undivided highways. Most people don't give enough attention to the very high statistical likelihood of being involved in a car crash.
Well, the poor MH370 and MH17 victims wouldn't agree with ya. And they've probably been in cars everyday of their lives without any major car incidents (well, right until their ill-fated flights).
My grandma used to say, "if a car gets wrecked it stops, if a plane wrecks it falls". Obviously I'd be more likely to survive in the former situation. Okay, let's be fair, even if a car collides with another car (or a tree/pole) you're still much more likely to survive that than than being in a falling plane.
And just because there are more car crashes it's not fair to say that driving is not as safe. We drive cars everyday. Nearly everyone drives a car, everyday - The comparison isn't fair. So of course we are more likely to get involved in a car crash. BUT, again, an automobile crash is still much more survivable than being in a plane crash.
Think of it this way; we're more likely to be bitten by a poisonous spider than be struck by lightning. People usually die when they're hit by lightning. But we rarely die with spider bites, which are much more common. Now should we say that a lightning strike is less riskier than a spider bite just because it's a much less common occurrence?
And just because there are more car crashes it's not fair to say that driving is not as safe. We drive cars everyday. Nearly everyone drives a car, everyday - The comparison isn't fair. So of course we are more likely to get involved in a car crash. BUT, again, an automobile crash is still much more survivable than being in a plane crash.
As long as we're talking commercial aviation, it is in fact perfectly fair to say driving isn't as safe.
This fellow did some math - 2004 numbers, I'm afraid:
Safety vs Driving
Driving: .528 fatal accidents and .588 fatalities per million hours[/list]Commercial flying: .2 fatal accidents and 6.5 fatalities per million flight hours
A-ha! - you say. Flying is murderous! - but this is of course bad logic, in that each commercial airplane carries way more people than each car does.
The number of fatal accidents per hour spent travelling is still much higher for cars. And you won't travel nearly as far in that hour. So if you compare going LA-SF, car travel is much, much more dangerous.
World War II was the deadliest military conflict in history. Over 60 million people were killed, which was over 2.5% of the world population.
So if WWIII was conducted by a computer simulation and 20 million people agreed to go to painless death chambers depending on the outcome, you would have to say the consequences of WWIII are a lot less than WWII.
But the impact of all those families killed in such a senseless exercise would have profound impact on the world.
Humanity doesn't have an emotional means of comparing tragedy. There is nothing in your psyche that allows you to compare the steady deaths and injuries of automobile accidents involving a few people at a time, to losing 200 people at once (even if they don't suffer).
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