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That said, aviation accident rates have been falling asymptotically while this "troubling trend" has been going on. In the US we've had no fatalities on domest

That said, aviation accident rates have been falling asymptotically while this "troubling trend" has been going on. In the US we've had no fatalities on domestic commercial flights since like 2009, and only the two at SFO a couple of years ago on international flights to the US. This is on a couple of billion flights with hundreds of billions of passenger departures.

jacquesm 9y ago
Airliner pilot discipline is orders of magnitude better than your average driver.
- doingmything 9y ago
  Not to mention the myriad of safety and control mechanisms in place on the aircraft (redundant systems etc) and away from it (air traffic control, IVR etc)
- itengelhardt 9y ago
  That's why at current we have 1.3 million people dying on the road in the US alone. It might make the matter of transitioning to self-driving worse, but it also makes manual driving worse.
  - tomcam 9y ago
    That's not correct... http://lmgtfy.com/?q=us+traffic+fatalities+by+year http://lmgtfy.com/?q=us+traffic+fatalities+by+year
  - alanh 9y ago
    The WSJ article includes NHTSA data indicating 'only' 35,000 traffic fatalities per yeah. Where are you getting this 1.3 million number from? That would be equivalent to a full 1% of US population dying on the road every 2.5 years
    - itengelhardt 9y ago
      you're right. I googled for "number of car deaths in US" (or so I thought) and that number came up. 1.3M seems to be the number for world wide fatalities.
  - ericd 9y ago
    That number sounds like the worldwide number, not US. Many places have much, much worse road fatalities per capita.
- maxcan 9y ago
  I'm a private pilot (general aviation, single engine cessna's). For the most part, our discipline is orders of magnitude higher than all but the best drivers. Airline pilots are orders of magnitude better than us. You are absolutely correct.
- reacweb 9y ago
  airline pilot selection plays also a role.
- tim333 9y ago
  Airline pilot discipline was also probably pretty good fifty years ago yet the accident rate has dropped as the tech has improved.
  - jacquesm 9y ago
    A good pilot can sometimes recover from being given a bad aircraft. If the aircraft get better of course the accident rate will improve.
aerlinger 9y ago
> This is on a couple of billion flights You sure about that number? Seems incredibly high to me.
- Tempest1981 9y ago
  "Airlines are expected to operate 38.4 million flights in 2017, up 4.9%." Maybe 3 billion passengers/year? From http://www.iata.org/pressroom/pr/Pages/2016-12-08-01.aspx http://www.iata.org/pressroom/pr/Pages/2016-12-08-01.aspx
portman 9y ago
Commercial air travel will serve just shy of 4 billion departures this year, with about 40 million flights. You are correct in the ratio (1:100) but I think you mistook departures for flights and extrapolated 2 orders of magnitude too far.

jacquesm 9y ago

Airliner pilot discipline is orders of magnitude better than your average driver.

doingmything 9y ago
Not to mention the myriad of safety and control mechanisms in place on the aircraft (redundant systems etc) and away from it (air traffic control, IVR etc)
itengelhardt 9y ago
That's why at current we have 1.3 million people dying on the road in the US alone. It might make the matter of transitioning to self-driving worse, but it also makes manual driving worse.
- tomcam 9y ago
  That's not correct... http://lmgtfy.com/?q=us+traffic+fatalities+by+year http://lmgtfy.com/?q=us+traffic+fatalities+by+year
- alanh 9y ago
  The WSJ article includes NHTSA data indicating 'only' 35,000 traffic fatalities per yeah. Where are you getting this 1.3 million number from? That would be equivalent to a full 1% of US population dying on the road every 2.5 years
  - itengelhardt 9y ago
    you're right. I googled for "number of car deaths in US" (or so I thought) and that number came up. 1.3M seems to be the number for world wide fatalities.
- ericd 9y ago
  That number sounds like the worldwide number, not US. Many places have much, much worse road fatalities per capita.
maxcan 9y ago
I'm a private pilot (general aviation, single engine cessna's). For the most part, our discipline is orders of magnitude higher than all but the best drivers. Airline pilots are orders of magnitude better than us. You are absolutely correct.
reacweb 9y ago
airline pilot selection plays also a role.
tim333 9y ago
Airline pilot discipline was also probably pretty good fifty years ago yet the accident rate has dropped as the tech has improved.
- jacquesm 9y ago
  A good pilot can sometimes recover from being given a bad aircraft. If the aircraft get better of course the accident rate will improve.

aerlinger 9y ago

> This is on a couple of billion flights You sure about that number? Seems incredibly high to me.

Tempest1981 9y ago
"Airlines are expected to operate 38.4 million flights in 2017, up 4.9%." Maybe 3 billion passengers/year? From http://www.iata.org/pressroom/pr/Pages/2016-12-08-01.aspx http://www.iata.org/pressroom/pr/Pages/2016-12-08-01.aspx

portman 9y ago

Commercial air travel will serve just shy of 4 billion departures this year, with about 40 million flights. You are correct in the ratio (1:100) but I think you mistook departures for flights and extrapolated 2 orders of magnitude too far.