What are the odds of being on (okay, inside) a plane that crashes?
With the sheer number of flights(we’re talking U.S. ones here) that occur daily, how safe is it to fly?
I can’t find the cite you are looking for by compared to just about every other kind of transport, air travel is extremely safe. In other words, I think you are much more likely to get struck by lightening (or be killed in an auto accident) then be killed in an airplane crash.
Notice I said killed and not hurt… which adresses your first question. If you are unlikely enough to be in a plane crash what are you odds of surviving? Pretty low I would suspect. While some people do walk away from plane crashes… most don’t. Now bad things happen in planes all the time that don’t result in a crash. I was in a plane once that lost an engine and had an emergency landing but everything else was okay so the pilot was able to nurse it back to the airport and get it down in one piece. Loose both engines (it was a MD-80) and that’s a different story.
So I think the answer is air travel is extremely safe and the chance of you being killed in a fiery crash is remote… on the other hand if your plane happens to crash don’t expect to walk away from it.
You can calculate the odds on any flight going down at Am I going down?.
I have no idea how accurate this site is, but it’s kind of fun. Do a local flight, then do one from say, Syria to Israel and watch your odds drop!
We had a thread concerning airline safety here. We discussed safety in terms of miles and hours traveled relative to other modes of transportation.
To the OP: we have the distinct honor of having a moderator here at the SDMB who has personally been in two (that’s one, two, count 'em folks) incidents involving aircraft. Maybe he’s got the SD?
That’s not at all what I would have guessed that web site was by its name. 
Are we talking about big jet aircraft here or are we including the little bitty ones too? Cause the only Bad Thing that happened to me in a big jet was that time we sucked up a seagull on take off and there were flames shooting out of the engine… and that’s how the 40 minute flight started.
Obviously I survived. Nobody got hurt but the seagull and some underwear that needed replacing.
Now, in the little prop jobs I fly shit goes wrong all the time (I just had two flights in a row with problems), but I’ve only had to make one emergency landing myself and… no one got hurt and nothing got broke.
The odds are very very low that you will die in a plane crash. Even if stuff goes wrong, the overwhelming majority of the time you’ll land safely.
Flying is STILL the safest form of transportation know to man (and woman). You are far more likely to get killed in your own car or even in your own bathroom (those nasty slip-fall accidents) than on board an airplane.
I just looked through the FAA’s web site and found a bewildering amount of statistics. I hadn’t really thought about how difficult it is to compile that sort of thing, and how many variables there are. For example:
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Are we counting only commercial jet aviation? What about charter? General aviation?
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How exactly do we define “crash”? The FAA uses terms like “accident” and “indcident”, which are different things, but describe some very similar events.
Another thing to consider is that sometimes planes do crash for fairly minor reasons, and many DON’T crash despite horrendous problems.
For example, there is a well known incident described in the book “The Black Box” in which an airliner crashed because its static port was taped over when the plane was washed. Without the static port, the plane’s altitude and airspeed information was in doubt. Although they had backup readouts, were in contact with controllers, had a good idea of what was wrong, and another plane was sent up to guide them, it still crashed.
On the other hand, planes with inoperative engines, decompression, bird strikes, and other fairly serious often land safely.
Personally, I believe commercial air travel to be quite safe. General aviation is not as safe, but not because the planes are small, as many believe. GA pilots (like myself) have less training than our professional counterparts, and are more likely to fly ourselves into trouble they can’t get out of.
I’m now working on my instrument rating. The amount of information I have to absorb is daunting. Any airline pilot has two licenses above that: Commercial, and Air Transport. And they have many hundreds of hours before they reach the cockpit of any heavy metal. So I’m very comfortable trusting the professionals.
If I did the math right, about 19% of crashes involve a fatality.
I know this is a bit of a trick and not what people usually think of but I thought elevators were the safest mode of transportation.
I’ll see if I can dig up a cite for that.
For all other modes of transportation I think commercial, large jet (i.e. roughly a 727 or larger) travel is by far your safest bet.
As an aside I remember a discussion I had with my brother and some of his friends once in a bar. We were talking about air accidents and my brother (who travels quite a bit) said that the thought of an air crash didn’t bother him in the slightest. He figured if it’s his time to go them it’s his time to go. No sense in getting worked up about it beforehand. His friend looked at him and said that was all well and fine but what happens if it is the pilot’s time to go (I know there are co-pilots and such but it was kinda funny anyway).
Flying on an airliner from a major carrier is the safest form of mass transportation, hands-down. It’s about an order of magnitude safer than driving your car.
However, to be fair, it should be noted that flying in a commuter aircraft is much less safe, about on par with driving in terms of fatalities per passenger mile.
Flying small aircraft (General Aviation) is even less safe. About on par with driving a motorcycle. So if some guy wants to take you for a ride in his Cessna, don’t let him tell you that it’s safer than driving. It’s not.
However, there’s a big difference between flying and driving - in aviation, most accidents are the result of pilot error. So the actual safety level of flying a small aircraft depends almost entirely on the capabilities and attitude of the pilot. By focusing heavily on safety and recurrent training, a private pilot can lower his risk down to almost as good as a major airline. But if you’re a careless hot-dog, your chance of dying in your airplane is significant. And I’ve lost a couple of friends that way, and in each case I could see the accident coming for a long time.
Bottom line: If you get a chance to go flying with someone, base your decision on what you know about the person. If he’s a macho, agressive young guy who brags about his scary trips through bad weather, let him go flying by himself. If he’s a careful, safety conscious guy, hop in. It’s a hoot.
If it’s true what you say about flying in small planes and pilot error, do we have a decent idea what happened to JFK Jr. and John Denver?
JFK, Jr. was a relatively low-time pilot who did a couple things to increase his risk of getting into trouble:
- He was flying at night
- over an expanse of open water
- in hazy/foggy weather
According to various flight instructors he had dealt with, Jon-Jon was an average pilot given his experience and not a hot-dog. He was about 1/2 to 2/3 through getting an instrument rating but was not qualified to fly in actual instrument-requiring conditions by himself.
Briefly, what happened was this: Originally intending to leave for Martha’s Vineyard in the afternoon (in daylight), a series of delays resulted in an after-dark take-off. He didn’t postpone until the next morning because he wanted to be there early for a family event. Although the weather was clear enough to fly without instruments both where he was taking off and at Martha’s Vineyard at the time he took off, some of the areas in between were so hazy/foggy flight without instruments would have been questionable. Conditions all over the region were appropriate for fog formation. Whether JFK, Jr. was aware of this is not known. Anyhow, he takes off. Over inhabited land, at night, there are lots of lights and such, which, if they start to get fuzzy or disappear, you know the weather is getting worse and maybe you should land if you can’t fly on instruments. Over the ocean, at night, there isn’t much to see so the weather can get worse without the pilot realizing it. Which is what happened. JFK, Jr. got into weather he didn’t have the skills to handle, lost control of the airplane, and crashed. As a side note - about 4 or 5 other pilots took off that night and followed a simillar route. Some of them turned back, some filed instrument flight plans from the air when the fog built up, so he wasn’t the only pilot surprised by the weather that night, just the only one who died. This sort of accident happens a dozen or so times a year, every year, but the other guys aren’t famous and don’t make the evening news
John Denver is a different story. Mr. Denver got his license in his late teens and by all accounts was an excellent and experienced pilot, flying all sorts and sizes of aircraft for many years. He decided to by a LongEZ (well, one of Burt Rutan’s “EZ” aircraft, I’m pretty sure it was the Long), a kitplane. That means somebody buys the thing, it’s delivered in several boxes, and the new owner puts it together. No mechanic’s license or experience required. This is called a “homebuilt”. The LongEZ has been around for quite some time and actually, despite being assembled by amateurs in most cases, has a pretty good safety record for a small plane. In fact, the safety record of the design was one of the reasons Mr. Denver chose the LongEZ. He didn’t build it himself, he bought one that was already built from the gentleman who originally put it together and had been flying it many years.
But ya gotta remember - this airplane was built by an amateur. One of the things about this category of aircraft is that the builder is allowed to modify the design. Which is what happened in this case. The original design of the longEZ has the fuel tank switch thingy in front of the pilot, down by his legs (a common place to put it in lots of aircraft). For some reason, the guy who built this particular LongEZ decided to move it and put it behind the pilot, up by the shoulder, I believe. I don’t know why he did this, maybe he had some physical quirk that made it easier for him to reach it there. In any case, it was never a problem for the original builder. But Mr. Denver, used to flying more convential airplanes, and certainly not accustomed to this particular airplane (he had, in fact, been practicing take-offs and landings to get more famillar with it) was not used to this arrangement. As near as anyone ever determined, he lost control of the airplane while trying to switch fuel tanks. There was some speculation he got tangled up in his safety harness, but we’ll never know quite what happened. Being low, he simply did not have the time to fix his mistake.
One of my old flight instructors is currently trying to buy a LongEZ. One of the first things he checks out is to see what, if any modifications have been made from the original design. The original Rutan airplane is a good plane, but if you’re into homebuilts you have to be careful about those modifications. Sometimes they’re a good thing, sometimes they’re not.
AOPA report on the Kennedy crash.
I read about the John Denver crash in Flying magazine about a year ago. No link, as Flying seems only to be available online to AOL members, which I’m not. Broomstick is correct about the fuel selector. I read that the builder of the Long-EZ didn’t want fuel lines to be in the part of the cockpit specified in the plans. I don’t know why (WAG: maybe he wanted to avoid kicking and breaking it when he entered or exited the plane), because I’m not familiar with the type. Apparently, the relocation of the fuel selector is a fairly common modification. One pilot who contributed to the investigation or the article flew a Long-EZ with the same modification some time before Denver bought the farm. This pilot said that in order to reach the fuel selector he had to twist in his seat. In doing so his right foot involuntarily pushed forward on the rudder pedal. He said he very nearly lost control of the aircraft.
The article concluded that John Denver probably tried to switch tanks and pushed hard on the right rudder pedal as he twisted. This caused him to lose control of the aircraft and he was unable to recover. (Note: the Long-EZ is a very safe and stable aircraft, but like all aircraft it can crash if properly provoked.) Denver had flown quite a bit that day. He missed or ignored at least one very good opportunity to refuel.
Most crashes are not cause by a single catastrophe. They are chain events. The immediate cause of Kennedy’s crash was that he entered the ol’ “graveyard spiral”, but you could say that he was dead before he ever left the ground. His departure was delayed. Choice #1: Delay the flight until the next morning, or launch the flight as planned. Choice #2: Having chosen to fly, he could have taken an instructor with him or not. Choice #3: Having chosen not to fly with an instructor, he chose to continue flight into unfavourable meteorological conditions. Having flown into such conditions, he failed to recognize his situation. After eventually realizing his situation, he faild to take proper corrective action. Had any one of those links in the chain been broken, he would likely be with us today. This is a case of poor decision-making. “Get-there-itis / May someday bite us!”
Denver could have refueled before he went out on the last flight. He could have familiarized himself with the fuel system in this particular Long-EZ.
Random thought: The three most useless things to a pilot are the runway behind him, the altitude above him, and the fuel that is still in the pit.
Another old canard: Accidents happen when you run out of airspeed, altitude, and ideas at the same time.
I’ve heard some conflicting opinions about Kennedy. When the crash first happened, a lot of pilots (myself included, unfortunately), piled on with the standard comments about reckless pilots, rich guys buying more airplane than they can handle comfortably, Kennedy egos, etc.
The facts don’t really bear that out. Interviews with Kennedy’s flight instructors indicate that he was in fact a very careful, conscientous pilot. He was known for cancelling flights because of weather when other VFR pilots would still fly, and on several occasions he had hired flight instructors to fly with him when he wasn’t totally comfortable with either the aircraft or the type of flying he was doing.
Furthermore, on this flight he added quite a few miles to his trip to stay over land as much as possible, heading out over the ocean only when he had to.
Unfortunately, he made one bad decision, probably due to his lack of experience (he had about 300 hours, which isn’t much), pressure to get where he was going, and factors beyond his control. BTW, that 300 hour mark is a particularly dangerous time for pilots - they’ve flown long enough to become somewhat complacent, and they often think they know a lot more than they actually do.
So he was inexperienced at understanding ocean weather, probably feeling his oats a little bit in his new airplane and with 300 hours of safe flying behind him, he was partly through his IFR, and had already flown many hours under the hood, which probably also gave him a false sense of security that made him push the weather a bit more.
And then he got unlucky. A lot of us who have gone through the stages of flying he has have made similar mistakes, and we just got away with it. I’m about as cautious a pilot as you’re likely to find, and I’ve been caught in bad weather before, and wound up flying in situations in which I was horrible uncomfortable. It happens. You minimize it by taking safety into account in everything you do, but still, stuff happens. Some great pilots have been killed because of a tiny lapse of judgement or a factor beyond their control. I remember Charlie Hillard, a great aerobatic pilot, being killed in his warbird ( A Hawker Sea Fury) because his brakes locked up on landing. From a distance, it looked like a minor mishap - the airplane landed, and on the rollout suddently slowed down quickly - the tail came up, the airplane slowly went up on its nose, and then over on its back. The airplane didn’t even look damaged. But by the time they got it lifted, Hillard was dead. The canopy was pushed down by the weight of the aircraft, which pushed his head down at an angle which made it impossible for him to breathe, and he asphyxiated.
John Denver is another example. By all accounts, a careful, talented pilot. He made a small error in judgement, and a combination of circumstances cost him his life.
But the same thing happens in cars, but much more often because of all the other drivers on the road. A friend of mine was killed on his motorcycle while parked at a red light. A drunk was trying to beat the yellow coming in the other direction. At the last moment, he decided he couldn’t make the yellow, and stood on the brakes. He lost control of the car, which went sideways and swiped my friend off the road. There was nothing he could do.
Thoughts on moving fuel selectors:
Now, a groundpounder might be thinking, why would someone move a fuel selector from where the designer intended to somewhere else?
One reason, as Johnny LA stated, might be to avoid it being an obstacle on entering or exiting the airplane.
Reason number two, maybe the pilot couldn’t reach it in it’s original position. Being only 5’3", I do run into this sometimes. I don’t fly my club’s Cessna 172 because I can’t see over the damn panel, I have trouble seeing all the dials, and I have to almost lay down horizontal across the co-pilot’s seat to reach the damn flap lever. And that’s with the two cushions under my butt and two more behind my back. Don’t know whether it’s the model year or that the original owner belonged to the NBA, but I don’t physically fit the airplane (other C172’s are not so bad, for whatever reason). I don’t fly one of the club’s Piper Warriors solo more than an hour from home because I can’t reach the goddamned fuel selector without taking off the seatbelt and rummaging around under the control panel, which can result in some very, um, interesting manuvers unless the air is dead calm so I can trim the plane for hands-off. Again, the other two Warriors, for some reason, are not so bad - I can bend over and reach the selector without incurring a safety hazard. Got a friend who owns a Mooney, and he can’t reach his fuel selector either - had a special grabber made just so he could safely switch the tanks in flight. Got another friend who flies helicoptors who is even shorter than me, and he’s always having to figure out how to reach stuff. And these are all standardized, certified airplanes. Homebuilts vary even more. I could see (and have known) unusually short or tall pilots move stuff around to make it easier for them to reach - which may make it more difficult for someone else.
Just so you know there’s some good reasons for monkeying around with aircraft designs.
Thoughts on JFK, Jr’s flight
Ya know, I got a special feeling for what Mr. Kennedy went through, because last August with a mere 150 hours in my log book I, too, got trapped by sudden IFR weather - visibility went from 7 miles to 500 feet faster than I could fly back to the airport. I wound up landing in a hayfield. It’s really hard to convey just how awful getting yourself into that situation is, and just how dicey it can be to get out. I’m not a better pilot than JFK, Jr., I’m a luckier pilot than he was. I was also over land and in daylight - if it had been night or over water I doubt I would have survived, and JFK, Jr. was facing both those additional factors.
I fly with an organization that has the highest success rate of any group, airline, company, military force or organization in North America. (For the most recent year for which statistics are available.)
The success rate is the number of flights which ended without incidents or accidents. They include in the list incidents/accidents which occur outside of flight time, such as during ground handling or maintenance.
Our success rate is 99.97%.
I don’t think I’m allowed to say who we are.
“Flying Safely with Flight Safety”
“Know Safety, No Pain. No Safety, Know Pain”
-From Flight Safety posters