However, air travel is very, very safe! There are only two fatalities for every 10 million departures. In the USA, the death risk over the past five years is one in 45 million flights. Until the Asiana 214 crash at the San Francisco Airport yesterday (above), it has been more than four years since the last airlines death in the U.S. In fact, last year was the safest since 1945 when propeller planes were all there were. As terrible as the site above looks, only two were killed in a filled Boeing 777, one of my favorite planes, and known for safety, as this was the first deaths attributed to this aircraft. This is that plane at Incheon Airport before departure.
Asiana is maybe my favorite airline. It ranked #2 to Qatar last year, with Singapore #3. Their service is unexcelled. The stewardesses are the best looking and that crash shows they are also very well trained. United Airlines is #64 and Hawaiian Air is #80.
Why is air travel so relatively safe? Technology and training. In fact, an argument can be made that authorities are today a bit too conservative, the Boeing Dreamliner 787 shut down possibly being an example, for the only problem was smoke from two batteries. The previous grounding was in 1979 of the McDonnell Douglas DC-10, which had crashed at O'Hare Airport at takeoff, killing 273.
But with 2 million passengers in the country on 30,000 flights (about a third of world's) every day, you can't help but be a tad concerned if you're flying. The odds begin to add up when you consider that nearly 2 billion fly 25 million flights every year. I'm now heading for three million miles just on Star Alliance. Actually, the logic should now be reversed, for the odds are high that you will survive your next flight.
Some might worry about sequestration, but maybe you missed the news that our Congress actually did something, waiving furloughs for 149 airports. When I fly from Honolulu, I'm always over water. On my recent ultimate global adventure, San Francisco and Sydney was separated by 7419 miles across the Pacific Ocean. That's almost 14 hours with almost nowhere to land.
Some might worry about sequestration, but maybe you missed the news that our Congress actually did something, waiving furloughs for 149 airports. When I fly from Honolulu, I'm always over water. On my recent ultimate global adventure, San Francisco and Sydney was separated by 7419 miles across the Pacific Ocean. That's almost 14 hours with almost nowhere to land.
Of course, the takeoff and landing are the crucial periods. I remember once when my flight from Narita took off in a storm, and only a few seconds after leaving ground was violently struck by lightning, there was a sudden flash, shuddering the plane and damaging my heart. A few minutes later, a rather calm captain confidently commented the obvious, but merely said there will be a black spot on the nose, but there was no cause for concern, and continued on. The nearly 4000 mile distance from Tokyo to Honolulu could only magnify the distress. Bolts could have been shaken loose. I later learned that each airplane is struck by lightning more than once/year. The last crash from this bolt was in 1967.
Another instance: as we're speeding up the Honolulu airport runway, I'm listening to Channel 9, and halfway through the take-off, the pilot screams ABORT! ABORT! The plane comes screeching to a halt, turns around and the PA announces that a red light came on, but that was diagnosed to be a minor malfunction, and we're still good to go. But I am not comfortable, for that is a trip of 2387 miles over water to San Francisco.
Another instance: as we're speeding up the Honolulu airport runway, I'm listening to Channel 9, and halfway through the take-off, the pilot screams ABORT! ABORT! The plane comes screeching to a halt, turns around and the PA announces that a red light came on, but that was diagnosed to be a minor malfunction, and we're still good to go. But I am not comfortable, for that is a trip of 2387 miles over water to San Francisco.
Also, keep in mind that commercial aviation is different from those single-engine private aircraft, which account for 69% of all deaths. And the air miles are significantly lower.
Compared to driving, turns out you can't really use parameters such as fatalities per 100 million miles, for this is around 1.27 deaths and 80 injuries for vehicles, but essentially zero for airplanes. Another way of looking at this is that there is around a one in a hundred chance you will die in an automobile accident. The odds for flying is one in 7,178 lifetimes!
Okay, so what about trains? Turns out it depends on what you attempt to calculate. In some years trains are safer, except when there are no air deaths, which is common. People fly more than train, but not by much. However, here are where trains are deadly: nearly a thousand have annually been known to perish at rail crossings and by trespassing (hobos, etc.) That Canadian train disaster on Saturday is an example of how trains can affect the environment.
So to summarize, air travel is very safe in commercial planes. Just watch out for those private ones with one engine. The real danger is getting to the airport, as cars are almost a hundred times more lethal than planes.
So to summarize, air travel is very safe in commercial planes. Just watch out for those private ones with one engine. The real danger is getting to the airport, as cars are almost a hundred times more lethal than planes.
-
There are three tropical storms out there: Chantal in the Atlantic at 45 MPH, Erick in the East Pacific at 45 MPH and Typhoon Soulik, in the West Pacific at 75 MPH, but expected to strengthen into a Category 3, and threaten anywhere from Okinawa on Thursday to North Taiwan on Friday and even possibly up North to Shanghai by Saturday:
-
There are three tropical storms out there: Chantal in the Atlantic at 45 MPH, Erick in the East Pacific at 45 MPH and Typhoon Soulik, in the West Pacific at 75 MPH, but expected to strengthen into a Category 3, and threaten anywhere from Okinawa on Thursday to North Taiwan on Friday and even possibly up North to Shanghai by Saturday:
-
0 comments:
Post a Comment