# Guys misses airplane flight, airplane crashes: True or myth?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guys-misses-airplane-flight-airplane-crashes-true-or-myth/488953
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [March 10, 2009, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guys-misses-airplane-flight-airplane-crashes-true-or-myth/488953 "2009-03-10T13:54:41Z")
**Posts on this page:** 12
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@ratatoskK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ratatoskK)
#### Post date: [March 10, 2009, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guys-misses-airplane-flight-airplane-crashes-true-or-myth/488953/21 "2009-03-10T20:24:40Z")
There is probably somebody missing for every flight that takes off. Once in a while there’s a crash, and voila, the guy missed the plane and it crashed. No big mystery!
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### Author:  [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)
#### Post date: [March 10, 2009, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guys-misses-airplane-flight-airplane-crashes-true-or-myth/488953/22 "2009-03-10T20:31:14Z")
A co-worker of mine was scheduled to be on the Korean Air flight that was shot down over Russia. It happened before I started working there but I personally knew the guy. Of course, we had three to ten employees flying to and from Asia a week in those days and we constantly rescheduled our departure dates for various reasons. We lost some cargo on that flight but thankfully, no people.
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### Author:  [@CookingWithGas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CookingWithGas)
#### Post date: [March 10, 2009, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guys-misses-airplane-flight-airplane-crashes-true-or-myth/488953/23 "2009-03-10T20:42:55Z")
Happened in the [Twilight Zone](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twenty-Two)
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### Author:  [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)
#### Post date: [March 10, 2009, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guys-misses-airplane-flight-airplane-crashes-true-or-myth/488953/24 "2009-03-10T20:55:26Z")
> [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](#):
>
> [Passenger Missed Connection to Doomed Continental Flight 3407 That Killed 50](http://www.abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=6879539&page=1)
Modern airlines use a hub system to connect passengers efficiently. It is likely that weather related crashes have passengers that missed the flight due to weather related connector delays.
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### Author:  [@Bender44](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bender44)
#### Post date: [March 10, 2009, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guys-misses-airplane-flight-airplane-crashes-true-or-myth/488953/25 "2009-03-10T21:08:24Z")
> [@Lust4Life](#):
>
> You never seem to hear the stories of people who were booked on later flights but managed to bump a place on the doomed aircraft because one of the original passengers no showed.
Something similar happened to my neighbors. Original flight from Hawaii was delayed and they missed their connection. The airline bumped them up to first class on the next available flight they had. It turned out to [Flight 232](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Airlines_Flight_232).
Apparently the same thing happened to the guy who would later train Barbaro, [Michael Matz.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_R._Matz)
He survived. They didn’t.
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### Author:  [@John\_DiFool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_DiFool)
#### Post date: [March 10, 2009, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guys-misses-airplane-flight-airplane-crashes-true-or-myth/488953/26 "2009-03-10T21:56:15Z")
> [@Scougs](#):
>
> There’s a few stories on Wiki regarding passengers that were meant to be on Pan Am Flight 103, including a guy who got drunk in the departure lounge and just missed the flight even though his luggage was on it - he was subsequently questioned by police, obviously.
>
> Linky: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan\_Am\_Flight\_103#Flight\_reservations](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan_Am_Flight_103#Flight_reservations)
Johnny Rotten also missed Flight 103 (see link).
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### Author:  [@Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fish)
#### Post date: [March 10, 2009, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guys-misses-airplane-flight-airplane-crashes-true-or-myth/488953/27 "2009-03-10T22:24:25Z")
This myth was mentioned in Stephen King’s _The Stand_, in a conversation between Glen Bateman and Stuart Redman. “Full planes never crash,” Bateman says, attributing this to latent psychic powers and precognition, to which Redman says “Oh bull _shit!_”
It’s a perfectly feasible and rational statement, if you also assume _full planes also rarely take off_. If planes are almost never 100% filled to capacity, then logically, full planes will also rarely crash.
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### Author:  [@The\_Surb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Surb)
#### Post date: [March 11, 2009, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guys-misses-airplane-flight-airplane-crashes-true-or-myth/488953/28 "2009-03-11T00:46:57Z")
My grandmother was supposed to be on this [plane](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Airlines_Flight_232). But she was running late and decided to stay in Denver to go to the prayer meeting at her son-in-law’s church. She is sure God saved her, I can’t argue that.
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### Author:  [@Una\_Persson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Una_Persson)
#### Post date: [March 11, 2009, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guys-misses-airplane-flight-airplane-crashes-true-or-myth/488953/29 "2009-03-11T02:40:27Z")
> [@davekhps](#):
>
> Really? I too have a friend who missed that flight. He works for the Department of Energy out in West Virginia. He and his office mates were in Chicago for a conference. They were all returning home on a later flight, but some people rescheduled to take the earlier flight that crashed. My friend didn’t know there was even a plane crash until he got off the plane and everyone was waiting there looking to see if their loved ones got on the later flight or not.
>
> About half his office died that day, including his boss.
Small world. I knew several people on that plane that crashed. It was…difficult.
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### Author:  [@Billdo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Billdo)
#### Post date: [March 11, 2009, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guys-misses-airplane-flight-airplane-crashes-true-or-myth/488953/30 "2009-03-11T17:54:07Z")
Think about it this way: Airlines routinely overbook their flights. That is to say, they have more people booked on each flight than there are seats. The airlines do this because they know statistically that some percentage of the booked passengers will not make the flight. This is the reason that, when more booked passengers show up than they expected, the airlines will ask for volunteers among confirmed passegers to take a later flight for compensation, or they will sometimes bump confirmed passengers involuntarily. Here’s a [New York Times article](http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/30/business/30bump.html) on the practice.
Let’s say that a flight with 150 seats is 10% overbooked by the airline. That means that at a minimum there were 15 people that were booked on the flight but didn’t get on, either by being a no-show or by being voluntarily or involuntarily bumped. If that 150 seat plane crashes, that means that there are at least 15 people who were booked but missed the flight.
Given that there are always no-shows, and particularly with overbooked flights, for every flight that crashes or otherwise has difficulties, there will be passengers in the situation described in the OP.
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### Author:  [@Quercus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quercus)
#### Post date: [March 11, 2009, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guys-misses-airplane-flight-airplane-crashes-true-or-myth/488953/31 "2009-03-11T18:26:44Z")
> [@The\_Surb](#):
>
> My grandmother was supposed to be on this [plane](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Airlines_Flight_232). But she was running late and decided to stay in Denver to go to the prayer meeting at her son-in-law’s church. She is sure God saved her, I can’t argue that.
So I guess that means that God wanted everyone who did make the flight to die. I wonder what she thinks they did to piss Him off.
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### Author:  [@Nickrz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nickrz)
#### Post date: [March 11, 2009, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guys-misses-airplane-flight-airplane-crashes-true-or-myth/488953/32 "2009-03-11T20:03:26Z")
Author Jerzy Kosinski was held up at customs in N.Y. coming into the U.S. in 1969. If that hadn’t happened, he would have been at the house on Cielo Drive along with Sharon Tate and her fellow murder victims.
If the dog hadn’t stopped to shit, he would have caught the rabbit. And that’s about the sum of all the coincidences you all are describing.
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