The biggest difference is on water all you can do is crash. You at least have the opportunity to land when on solid ground.
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Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 ended in the Southern Indian Ocean
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The biggest difference is on water all you can do is crash. You at least have the opportunity to land when on solid ground.
It's not the plane.. It's the people in charge of the plane. That air France article showed they had no clue once auto pilot shut off. Are we descending of ascending? Seriously?
The fact of you putting your life in the hands of 2-3 people has always kind of bothered me.
| Praxis |
Banned
It's the ensuing fire that kills a lot of people on land and drowning, obviously in water. That's if you survive the impact. Either way you're lucky to get out in both situations.
Shit has me shook. This whole situation has. I'm flying to Hawaii for honeymoon. Never flown over water before. That article got me feeling like nope but too late
The odds of you getting injured or killed are 700x less likely to happen than being in a car.
You're actually more likely of being shot by someone by over 2200%.
So try and rest easy on that honeymoon, man.
The odds of something going awry are near-cataclysmic levels. I'm a frequent traveler who used to have similar fears 10 years ago.
No different than riding the bus, or in a cab, or a ferry, or an amusement ride.
Yes, the consequences are potentially so much more severe. But flying is actually that much safer. It's hard to grasp this sometimes, due to the scope of attention these occasions garner.
Had a whole post written up, but it just boiled down to basically this. Some of the design decisions, and I'm sure being an armchair of an armchair mechanical engineer here, are really odd, such as the dual flight sticks that average each pilots input, rather than a one dude in control approach. Also not being able to tell if you were angled up or down, seems like something you'd just be able to feel rather than rely on a readout. Or take the whole American space pen vs russian pencil angle and use some sort of low tech solution to indicate leveling as a backup? Mostly based on the Air France disaster and reading up on it, pilot error / inexperience played a massive part in it as well, which is again really scary, captain leaves cabin and 15 minutes later everyone is dead.
everyday math
Banned
Scary read. Seemed he did everything wrong to get out of the stall. :/
Reading the comments on the article. One Commentator is a Captain at Delta airlines(Bill). He explains quite a bit on what's going on.
Reading a lot of the comments from pilots on that 447 article. A lot of criticism is thrown at Airbus as well with the averaging of dual pilot controls. It seemed likely that when Roberts attempted to nose down that would have saved everyone's lives (possibly). Still, to completely ignore over 75 stall warnings is baffling.
I don't think China cares that much about the welfare of non-citizens in other countries. Most of its citizens won't even know such issues exist.
Not to pull this off-topic too much, but this is a common myth:
http://www.snopes.com/business/genius/spacepen.asp
Short version: Americans and Russians both started out using pencils in space, but found that having pencil shavings floating around was dangerous. They also wanted to reduce the number of flammable objects on board. The space pen was developed independently by Paul C. Fisher, who then sold 400 of them to NASA at $2.95 each back in 1967.
All the good analysis takes that into account and it's still not even close in terms of safety. Like the gap is comical. Even if you're scared to death of flying (totally legit), I don't see why this would be even remotely surprising if you drive at all.
So you're telling me the average survival rate of a plane crash is higher than that of a car crash?? If someone is scared of a plane crash then they are scared of what will happen ASSUMING a plane crash occurs. Taking into account the planes that don't crash doesn't help that's fear.
When a car crash occurs. They aren't necessarily guaranteed death.
depths20XX
Member
Why does it matter that you almost always die when a plane crashes? The fact is you're more likely to die in a car crash than on a plane.
You're more likely overall. But chances of surviving a car crash are much greater which is my point. Telling me that more people die in car crashes won't make me more likely to get on a plane because I know that IF the plane goes down I'm pretty much fucked. A drunk driver can flip my car over and I still might survive.
But you compare deaths. There are tens of thousands of deaths in cars every year and far, far fewer deaths in planes. Also if you look at aviation across all categories including civil and commercial, small and large planes, most accidents do not result in any fatalities at all.
CitizenCope
Member
I can't sleep when someone else is driving a car but nothing like the anxiety of no control when in a plane. Is it really that crazy for people to feel more unsafe when flying than when driving despite it being "More safe to fly".
My implication was that nobody knows what they are talking about, or basically that there is just TOO little information causing people to come up with all kinds of contradictory/inaccurate reports. Like I already mentioned, CNN says one thing while Inmarsat says another. How do you reconcile that? (unless you just randomly pick someone to side with).
Or what about the "objects" seen floating in the "search area" that they suddenly can't find? Or the fact that they said that they will have the circular and rectangular objects in their possession "within a few hours"? What ever happened to that? How many false reports of debris sightings do we need before it's reasonable to conclude that maybe they don't know what they're talking about (or that they're looking in the wrong area)?
And maybe I jumped the gun a bit, too. I still care, but I'm just not going to assume that anybody actually knows where the plane is until there is physical evidence of it.
...eh? That's the whole point of these statistics. You're still more likely to die in a car crash than on a plane. That only means there are even more car crashes overall, just non-deadly.
Amentallica
Unconfirmed Member
That Air France article! God damn. You forget what the fate of the crew and passengers is until the very end as your heart is racing the entire time. So god damn tragic and frightening.
Edit: figured it out, I'm an asshole
Edit: figured it out, I'm an asshole
The issue when comparing car and plane crashes has nothing to do with statistics. It has everything to do with illusory superiority. Most people think that they're an above average driver, so they feel safer.
i) CNN is quoting sources whose data is based on primary radar readings, which are unreliable. They have never claimed radar-based altitude readings to be reliable.
ii) Inmarsat pings occurred roughly once an hour, so altitude calculations based on that can only estimate the altitude of the plane at that specific time, not between pings.
These statements aren't inconsistent at all.
The issue seems to be that you haven't done research rather than "nobody knows" what they are talking about.
I am more worried that two co-pilots are allowed to be the sole operators.
everyday math
Banned
The captain has to take a break once in awhile.
It's not like they're newbies.
We already debunked this logic early in this thread.
True, and I suppose that no one can expect a captain (or any single person) to be in control for the duration of overseas trips...still something I never thought about before, though.
Amentallica
Unconfirmed Member
Did the link to that Popular Mechanics Air France article die? Where the fuck is it? I'm trying to show everyone at work the article AND IT ISN'T WORKING!
Nooooooo
Nooooooo
Messofanego
Banned
And also people process emotion easier than logic.
PoweredBySoy
Banned
Uuuuuugggh, why'd I watch that.
My family is flying from the states to Brussels on an A330 next month.
Part of the problem is pilots not being trained in airbus alternate law ie when the airspeed reading went haywire the plane turned off its automatic systems. Meaning they actually have to fly the bloody plane. You can't stall an airbus in normal law. The computer won't let you. That doesn't excuse holding the stick back and falling out of the sky however.
Air France especially (imo) were guilty of not training their pilots to fly in special cases. They would not be my first choice of airline to fly on.
He, quite honestly, was a fucking moron. And both co-pilots ignoring the stall warning over 70 times. Holy shit. Its to the point where I question if Bonin really passed any standards necessary to be any kind of pilot at all.
PoweredBySoy
Banned
Seriously. As I was watching that I was actually getting mad at him. Take your fucking hand off the lever. There was no communication amongst the pilots as to what they were doing - and it's like he completely forgot about his right hand. At least according to the dialogue presented in the documentary.
Seems like almost entirely pilot error to me - from not avoiding the storm in the first place to not knowing how to arrest a stall.
depths20XX
Member
Shit, I've only played Ace Combat and I know not to hold back during a stall.
However, statistics show that you're over 2000% more likely to die while in a motor vehicle than while on any form of air transport. It's not based purely on the chances of purely being in an accident. It's about how likely you would perish along with the chances of getting into an accident. Deaths relative to crash numbers does not equate to an overall mortality rate. If you really want to slap a magnifying glass over things, we can get into injury (non-lethal) statistics.
I'm sorry, but they're all going to die. Eventually.
Planes are ultra safe, no need to worry.While in the midst of a tropical storm, I'd have doubts to my direction and heading as well.
This is the first 777 crash where everyone died. In its first hull loss everyone survived and in its second only two died.
The older A340 has been in some accidents, but no fatalities yet. Everyone survived in this crash:
Edit: Awful deaths can happen when driving as well.
This sums up my points much better. Cheers, lol.
Wow what a crazy story. First time I heard about that.
I still remember that to this day, being a local and fan of his podcasts. Incredibly sad and dramatic stuff.
Where are you getting this information that a radar-based altitude reading is unreliable?
I was interpreting that statement to mean the entire flight, not just those 7 pings. If that's what they meant, then sure: they're not inconsistent after all.
But what about the objects being sighted? You completely ignored that and just attacked everything else I said. Last I heard, the objects would be in their possessions "within a few hours", which was 2 days ago. And not only that: NONE of the objects seen by satellite have been visually confirmed, and I think the first one sighted was a week ago.
StopMakingSense
Member
This claim is attached to the radar ping that had the plane climbing up past 40,000 ft. That specific reading was at the edge of the radar coverage, where altitude readings can be inconsistent.
I don't believe they have any height information from the INMERSAT pings, but, the distance traveled on their fuel might allow them to make an inference that they were at cruising height, and not flying lower.
Literally no authorities ever said "objects would be in their possessions 'within a few hours'." I have no idea where you would have gotten that from. There was zero expectation of that.
I don't think you guys get my point. I'm not scared of flying. But someone who IS scared of flying is scared of the consequences of a PLANE CRASH not the consequences of simply getting on the plane. Therefore in their mind once the plane inevitably crashes their chances of survival are slim to none whereas in a car even if they crash 100 times most times they will live.
lemmykoopa
Junior Member
Regarding the 447 Air France Crash : didn't the pilots feel physical sensations from rapidly losing altitude?
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