I'm so stupid...


I don't fly much at all. I'm about to board a plane in two days and I just sat up and watched two episodes of this series. The only consolation is that these two episodes were from crashes in the 70's. Good God, we've learned a lot since then! Some of the behaviour in the cockpit is mind boggling. Bullying, specific tasks not assigned so all the blokes in the cockpit who are concentrating on the same thing while an alarm is sounding off to alert them that the plane is dropping altitude and they don't hear it!

Anyway, I'll say to myself as I board, it'll be ok, it'll be ok. Mind you I'm flying on Qantas, which I'm informed is the only commercial airline without any casualties from flight mishaps to date...I don't like those odds, it's bound to happen sooner or later!!

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It gets a lot worse, when you look at the big picture (forget about the 70's, LOL!..;))

@https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_accidents_and_incidents_involving_commercial_aircraft

++http://www.airsafe.com/events/last_15.htm

++http://www.mirror.co.uk/all-about/plane-crash

++https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_accidents_and_incidents_involving_commercial_aircraft#External_links

.. & it's all downhill from there: https://www.google.com/search?q=latest+aircraft+accidents

There are many safety systems and solutions which have been deemed over-redundant (nuts), not financially viable and so on - which could've saved (an incredible amount of) lives, had they been implemented.

It would seem that in many cases, the airlines find it cheaper to pay damages for the people who die on their aircraft - than to prevent it from happening, in the first place. It's a truly pathetic world that we live in.. Thankfully shown in these series.

Perhaps some important lessons to take-away are to: 1) have your own very (!) detailed weather reports of where you're going, 2) never fly in any kind of extreme weather (hot, or cold) and 3) so on and so forth - because there are so many to, simply, list here - in order to maximize your chances of surviving your holiday flight. xD

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Thanks for the tip! I survived. The weather was absolutely perfect!

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"It gets a lot worse, when you look at the big picture".

I'm not sure what all those links are supposed to prove, besides that sh-t happens and no doubt continues to happen. When divorced from their proper statistical context, all those listings of plane crashes are virtually meaningless - statistical context which shows that while there are twice as many planes flying around today than there were 30 years ago, there are just as many crashes. In short, air safety has come a long way.


"There are many safety systems and solutions which have been deemed over-redundant (nuts), not financially viable so on".

Such as? Chances are though that if something is deemed over-redundant, then it likely IS over-redundant, considering that all key systems already have back-ups of some nature. And it certainly doesn't look either the airlines or manufacturers are doing much penny-pinching when it comes to improving their aircraft (for one example, Airbus recently had the doors of their A380 fleet changed because there were a couple of instance of leakage on the cruising altitude - an undertaking which cost them 100 million Euros, and it's not even really a safety issue).


"It would seem that in many cases, the airlines find it cheaper to pay damages for the people who die on their aircraft - than to prevent it from happening, in the first place".

That's a ludicrous assertation which, for one thing, conveniently forgets that paying damages isn't the only way airlines are liable to suffer as a consequence of a crash. They also have their reputation to consider and since people tend to be very mindful of things like dying in a plane crash, becoming associated with such morbid events or being perceived as "dangerous" is the last thing an airline can afford (in the 1990's, both Pan Am and USAir went bust in a large part because of public mistrust after high profile disasters).


"Have your own ver detailed weather reports".

You can certainly do that if you want to avoid the inconvenience of turbulence or something. Otherwise I don't see the use though, considering that modern aircraft have their own advanced on-board weather radars which, among other things, are capable of detecting wind shear. And no plane will fly into an outright stormcloud; all else, the planes are designed to be able to handle. Never heard of any crashes due to hot or cold weather, either.



"facts are stupid things" Ronald Reagan

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