# Should we care if safety equipment causes most airline crashes? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 25, 2009, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-we-care-if-safety-equipment-causes-most-airline-crashes/515096 "2009-10-25T21:42:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![The\_Cleveland\_Steamer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/cdc98d/32.png) [@The\_Cleveland\_Steamer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Cleveland_Steamer)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2009, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-we-care-if-safety-equipment-causes-most-airline-crashes/515096/1 "2009-10-25T21:42:27Z")
[QUOTE=Scylla] I later read a book called Deep Survival which cited a study that said that most major airplane accidents happened as a result of faulty safety equipment. This means the bad safety equipment actually causes the crash. This occurs because every time something goes wrong on a plane we build a safety into it to prevent that occurence. That adds complexity. The _additional complexity increases chance of failure_, and something like moral hazard occurs because of confidence in safety equipment. [/quote] The italicized quote is making a false conclusion. Just because most crashes are caused by safety equipment does not mean this equipment (or the added complexity) increased the chance of failure (crash). Think this way.\* Planes with no safety equipment will crash every 1,000 flights. Planes loaded with safety equipment will crash every 10,000,000 flights. 99.9% of the planes loaded with safety equipment crashes are caused by the safety equipment. The majority of crashed are caused by the safety equipment. Did they increase the chance of failure? \*numbers made up ---
**Author:** ![Grumman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/43a26b/32.png) [@Grumman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grumman)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2009, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-we-care-if-safety-equipment-causes-most-airline-crashes/515096/2 "2009-10-25T22:09:54Z")
The crashes are not necessarily caused by the safety equipment. They are caused by the _lack_ of properly functioning safety equipment. Imagine you’ve got a plane with a parachute for the pilot. For the sake of simplicity, the plane has a 10% failure rate, and the parachute has a 10% failure rate. So one out of ten times, the plane crashes, and one out of a hundred times the pilot dies. 100% of pilot deaths are caused by the failure of both plane and parachute. But removing the parachute doesn’t fix the problem, because a non-parachute has a _100%_ failure rate, compared to the parachute’s 10%. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2009, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-we-care-if-safety-equipment-causes-most-airline-crashes/515096/3 "2009-10-25T22:11:09Z")
Well, I guess if you’ve fixed all the obvious problems, the only times problems will occur will be the unobvious ones. If it means having one crash in a million caused by safety gear, where the rate before the safety gear was implemented was ten per million, that doesn’t seem like a bad trade to me. Similarly, I’ve heard that the existence of seat belts allows drivers to be more reckless, creating accidents through stupidity. If we get ten deaths through seat-belt-inspired stupidity versus 100 through non-belted flying-through-windshield road-pizza moments… Further, there’s the sports-gear argument. Hockey players were extra gear. This allows them to hit each other harder than the old less-protected days, leading to a trade-off. Nothing ever solves a problem - we just hope it helps more than it hurts, leading to a net gain. ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2009, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-we-care-if-safety-equipment-causes-most-airline-crashes/515096/4 "2009-10-25T22:23:09Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > Well, I guess if you’ve fixed all the obvious problems, the only times problems will occur will be the unobvious ones. If it means having one crash in a million caused by safety gear, where the rate before the safety gear was implemented was ten per million, that doesn’t seem like a bad trade to me. > > Similarly, I’ve heard that the existence of seat belts allows drivers to be more reckless, creating accidents through stupidity. If we get ten deaths through seat-belt-inspired stupidity versus 100 through non-belted flying-through-windshield road-pizza moments… > > Further, there’s the sports-gear argument. Hockey players were extra gear. This allows them to hit each other harder than the old less-protected days, leading to a trade-off. > > Nothing ever solves a problem - we just hope it helps more than it hurts, leading to a net gain. Back before the equipment was bettered, some players hit just as hard. They just gave and absorbed more damage. Hockey used to a game of horribly scarred players. They took hundreds of stitches during their careers. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2009, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-we-care-if-safety-equipment-causes-most-airline-crashes/515096/5 "2009-10-25T22:27:42Z")
I don’t think the premise of the OP is correct. Most crashes aren’t caused by faulty safety equipment. Unless you want to be overly broad in your definition of “safety equipment”. [For example](http://www.airlineupdate.com/airlines/airline_extra/accidents/year_index/accidents_2009.htm): 1/15/2009 - US Airways Flight 1549 landed in the Hudson River due to a failure of the engines to safely continue running with a goose in them. 1/27/2009 - A FedEx plane ran off the runway due to improper use of the brakes or steering. You get the idea. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2009, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-we-care-if-safety-equipment-causes-most-airline-crashes/515096/6 "2009-10-25T22:33:32Z")
I didn’t say it was a _good_ argument, though [it was kicked around](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/archive/index.php/t-202502.html) a few years ago, relating to boxing gloves, i.e. in the bare-knuckle days, it would be foolish to try to punch your opponent in the skull because you’d just break your own hand. Now with padded gloves, head-hits are more feasible. I dont’t know the relative casualty rates of 2009 and 1909 boxing, though.