# NOT flying together.
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-flying-together/307985
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [June 12, 2005, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-flying-together/307985 "2005-06-12T18:08:06Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@ltfire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ltfire)
#### Post date: [June 12, 2005, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-flying-together/307985/1 "2005-06-12T18:08:06Z")
I have read that some famous couples, chief officers of large corporations, etc., never fly together, so as not to wipe out a company all at once, in the event of an accident Knowing that all pro sports teams travel by air, coast to coast, and state to state, is it general policy to have the entire team, and support staff, on the same flight, or, are two, or maybe three planes used, to insure continuity in the event of a tragedy.
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### Author:  [@Tripler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tripler)
#### Post date: [June 12, 2005, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-flying-together/307985/2 "2005-06-12T18:17:54Z")
It’s perfectly sensible to do just this thing. In the private sector, it’s completely up to each company’s Chief of Security (or whatever title he/she carries) to make up the rules that govern this.
I don’t know of any particular examples, and I don’t think anyone really _would_. That corporate Chief of Security wouldn’t exactly want to tip his/her hand at what they do as far as standard operating procedures (SOP).
Your question is kind of nebulous, and I guess all I can answer it with is, “Well, it depends. . .”
Tripler
I know, I’m a _big_ help, aren’t I?
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### Author:  [@fessie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fessie)
#### Post date: [June 12, 2005, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-flying-together/307985/3 "2005-06-12T18:20:31Z")
Absolutely. It’s a stated policy with a lot of corporations that people have to take separate flights. I can’t remember which companies it was or when, but I ran into this many times during my years as an Admin.
No idea about sports teams.
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### Author:  [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)
#### Post date: [June 12, 2005, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-flying-together/307985/4 "2005-06-12T18:31:47Z")
The most famous couple that don’t travel together are the President and Vice-President.
[Syracuse University](http://bfasweb.syr.edu/risk_mgt/corptravel.htm) has (or had) a detailed policy on the idea:
> [@](#):
>
> Travel Protocol
>
> The Chancellor shall travel with no more than two members of his/her Cabinet in the same aircraft, rail car, personal vehicle, taxi, or other modes of transportation. The Vice Chancellor and Provost and the Senior Vice President for Business, Finance, and Administrative Services shall never both travel with the Chancellor at the same time.
>
> The Vice Chancellor and Provost and the Senior Vice President for Business, Finance, and Administrative Services shall never travel together. In addition, no more than three members of the Chancellor’s Cabinet shall travel together in the same aircraft, rail car, personal vehicle, taxi, or other modes of transportation.
>
> No more than three direct reports of the Vice Chancellor or each Senior Vice President shall travel together in the same aircraft, rail car, personal vehicle, taxi, or other modes of transportation.
>
> For Faculty and Staff, when practical, the University recommends traveling alone when separate modes of transportation are available. If separate modes of transportation are not available, the University recommends limiting the number of individuals traveling together.
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### Author:  [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)
#### Post date: [June 12, 2005, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-flying-together/307985/5 "2005-06-12T20:17:50Z")
Sports teams all travel together. Each league has in place, however, a contingency plan should, Og forbid, a plane go down. MLB, for example, would hold an emergency draft of players from the other teams to fill the ranks of the depleted team, along with bringing up the majority of their AAA Farm club. Other sports have similar plans filed away. Only prudent. I’ll see if I can dig up the specifics.
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### Author:  [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)
#### Post date: [June 12, 2005, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-flying-together/307985/6 "2005-06-12T20:30:32Z")
Airline pilot here. I’ve flown a lot of sports charters, both pro and college.
When a team travels, we haul them all on one plane. We’ve got the players, the coaches, the trainers, and a few generic staff types, plus often a couple wives and one or two press types. We also have all, or at least most, of their personal gear in the belly.
Particlularly for a football team, a lot of the sideline equipment goes by truck, plus a crew of equipment handlers. Baseball and hockey (remember them?) have a lot less sideline gear and most of that tends to ride with us too.
if we went down with 100% killed, the team would still have its ownership, the head office, a coach or two, and any players not traveling to that game. And that’s about it.
On the ride to/from the airport, they’re normally split into 2 or 3 busses, plus a limo or two for the fatcats or head coaches. But that’s mostly due to that large a headcount not fitting in a single bus, rather than any concern about accidents.
Oddly enough, the hockey teams are by far the best behaved, while baseball is the worst. Sort of the opposite of what one might expect from their on-stage personnas.
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### Author:  [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)
#### Post date: [June 12, 2005, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-flying-together/307985/7 "2005-06-12T21:17:08Z")
> [@silenus](#):
>
> Sports teams all travel together. Each league has in place, however, a contingency plan should, Og forbid, a plane go down. MLB, for example, would hold an emergency draft of players from the other teams to fill the ranks of the depleted team, along with bringing up the majority of their AAA Farm club. Other sports have similar plans filed away. Only prudent. I’ll see if I can dig up the specifics.
I believe each team lists one player on their roster to be on the “death squad” in case a plane crashes. The name of the player is kept confidential; only the team and the league office knows who it is (to protect the players’ egos). I’m not sure if the names would go into a draft, or if they automatically move to the new city and team.
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### Author:  [@The\_Scrivener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Scrivener)
#### Post date: [June 12, 2005, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-flying-together/307985/8 "2005-06-12T22:31:23Z")
The way I see it, it’s a different way of distributing the risk, rather than reducing it. Splitting up a group leaves you with a remnant in case of disaster, but increases the risk of a lesser disaster occurring in the first place. For sports teams, the immediate fallout would be virtually the same, with the season effectively over.
There was the famous tragedy during WWII of the “Fighting Sullivans,” five brothers who went down together when their ship was sunk. This tragic case led to the “Sullivan Rule” forbidding such clusters of family members in combat postings. What people may tend to overlook in the Sullivan case, though, is that while their outcome was extremely unlucky, the Sullivans were arguably following a pretty intelligent strategy for maximizing their collective chances of surviving the war _as an intact family_, with zero casualties. If the loss of even one brother would result in grief and misery for the others (roughly as much unquantifiable unhappiness as mourning, say, two or three brothers), and sticking together favors either 100% survival or massive casualties, then theirs was an understandable gamble. Besides, there’s the key factor of mutual protection and cooperation – their devotion to each other’s wellbeing would enhance the survival prospects if any one of them were to be seriously wounded, imperilled by a fire, etc.
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### Author:  [@Yogurt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yogurt)
#### Post date: [June 13, 2005, 3:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-flying-together/307985/9 "2005-06-13T03:41:16Z")
The most noteable example that comes to my mind was the [Marshall University Football Team,](http://www.herald-dispatch.com/mu_crash/111570a.htm) of 1970.
I can’t remember it happening to any professional sports team though.
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### Author:  [@Ms\_Macphisto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ms_Macphisto)
#### Post date: [June 13, 2005, 4:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-flying-together/307985/10 "2005-06-13T04:36:14Z")
Not pro sports, but the entire US figure skating team - skaters, coaches, officials from the US Figure Skating Association - died in a plane crash en route to the world championships in 1961.
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### Author:  [@UCDave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UCDave)
#### Post date: [June 13, 2005, 5:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-flying-together/307985/11 "2005-06-13T05:49:50Z")
> [@](#):
>
> Not pro sports
While it’s true an entire pro sports team has not been wiped out in a crash (that I have found), half of one did with the entire team onboard. In 1958 the Manchester United football (soccer) team crashed on takeoff, killing 8 of 17 players on board, and 23 people total.
[http://www.manchester2002-uk.com/sports/footballers5.html](http://www.manchester2002-uk.com/sports/footballers5.html)
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### Author:  [@Balthisar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balthisar)
#### Post date: [June 13, 2005, 2:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-flying-together/307985/12 "2005-06-13T14:07:55Z")
I work for a large company with several private planes, including a Leerjet-like small jet plane that a _lot_ of big-wigs get on together all the time.
We often fly as a huge group on one of our two F70’s – I’ve always wondered what would happen to our current program if it took out half of the team all in one blow. Uh, I don’t really want to know, though.
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### Author:  [@ltfire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ltfire)
#### Post date: [June 13, 2005, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-flying-together/307985/13 "2005-06-13T19:54:49Z")
> [@silenus](#):
>
> Sports teams all travel together. Each league has in place, however, a contingency plan should, Og forbid, a plane go down. MLB, for example, would hold an emergency draft of players from the other teams to fill the ranks of the depleted team, along with bringing up the majority of their AAA Farm club. Other sports have similar plans filed away. Only prudent. I’ll see if I can dig up the specifics.
I’ve re-read your post three times, and I just can not grasp the reasoning behind it.As an example, you are telling me that George Steinbrenner, owner of the NY Yankees, is comfortable with your scenario, that he has your contingency plan in place at this time, and that is what would be implemented should his entire multi- million dollar team go down in a plane crash. Why, if this leaks out, it would be headline news all over the world.
Cite, please.
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### Author:  [@ioioio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ioioio)
#### Post date: [June 13, 2005, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-flying-together/307985/14 "2005-06-13T20:02:43Z")
I have no idea why, but the artist Christo and his wife do not fly together. [Cite.](http://www.christojeanneclaude.net/errors.html)
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### Author:  [@rfgdxm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rfgdxm)
#### Post date: [June 13, 2005, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-flying-together/307985/15 "2005-06-13T20:12:30Z")
> [@ltfire](#):
>
> I’ve re-read your post three times, and I just can not grasp the reasoning behind it.As an example, you are telling me that George Steinbrenner, owner of the NY Yankees, is comfortable with your scenario, that he has your contingency plan in place at this time, and that is what would be implemented should his entire multi- million dollar team go down in a plane crash. Why, if this leaks out, it would be headline news all over the world.
> Cite, please.
I don’t understand your post. Please clarify.
Also, it is quite possible that major sports teams have bought insurance that would pay off if a plane carrying the team crashed. This would at least keep the team solvent.
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### Author:  [@ltfire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ltfire)
#### Post date: [June 13, 2005, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-flying-together/307985/16 "2005-06-13T20:20:36Z")
> [@rfgdxm](#):
>
> I don’t understand your post. Please clarify.
>
> Also, it is quite possible that major sports teams have bought insurance that would pay off if a plane carrying the team crashed. This would at least keep the team solvent.
My post was in responce to
silenus in post # 5.
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### Author:  [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)
#### Post date: [June 13, 2005, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-flying-together/307985/17 "2005-06-13T20:37:10Z")
> [@ltfire](#):
>
> I’ve re-read your post three times, and I just can not grasp the reasoning behind it.As an example, you are telling me that George Steinbrenner, owner of the NY Yankees, is comfortable with your scenario, that he has your contingency plan in place at this time, and that is what would be implemented should his entire multi- million dollar team go down in a plane crash. Why, if this leaks out, it would be headline news all over the world.
> Cite, please.
[Easily.](http://www.s-t.com/daily/02-01/02-07-01/c05sp133.htm)
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### Author:  [@ltfire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ltfire)
#### Post date: [June 13, 2005, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-flying-together/307985/18 "2005-06-13T21:28:12Z")
> [@silenus](#):
>
> [Easily.](http://www.s-t.com/daily/02-01/02-07-01/c05sp133.htm)
Thank you for the cite. Personally, I am shocked.
I’ll have to have a conversation with George, this weekend.
😃
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### Author:  [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)
#### Post date: [June 13, 2005, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-flying-together/307985/19 "2005-06-13T21:28:15Z")
Yep. MLB has a ‘disaster draft’ plan in place in which teams get to take players off others major league rosters in mid-season should a catastrophe take out all or most of the major league squad.
I recall this being discussed when the Angels bus crashed and rolled on the New Jersey turnpike in 1992.
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### Author:  [@ShibbOleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ShibbOleth)
#### Post date: [June 14, 2005, 12:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-flying-together/307985/20 "2005-06-14T00:41:34Z")
> [@Jonathan Chance](#):
>
> Yep. MLB has a ‘disaster draft’ plan in place in which teams get to take players off others major league rosters in mid-season should a catastrophe take out all or most of the major league squad.
>
> I recall this being discussed when the Angels bus crashed and rolled on the New Jersey turnpike in 1992.
Is it possible for the Devil Rays to invoke this clause just on the basis of their on-field performance this year?
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