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> Even with the recent 737 fiascos, flying those is by far safer than driving to work I can't find the numbers easily right now, but I'd really like to see "de

by trimbo 7y ago

> Even with the recent 737 fiascos, flying those is by far safer than driving to work I can't find the numbers easily right now, but I'd really like to see "deaths / person-hours flown on a 737 Max" vs. "deaths / person-hours driven".

yitosda 7y ago
Should be "deaths / person-miles" when comparing to driving.
- quietbritishjim 7y ago
  I don't think it should, because if I didn't fly to the other side of the world for a holiday then I wouldn't replace that journey with a drive of the same number of miles. Besides, when people describe flying as "safer than driving", the implication is that you're more likely to end up dying one way than the other. So any measure of "deaths per x" (x is miles, hours, or whatever) needs to be followed with "typical x per lifetime".
cameldrv 7y ago
Roughly: There have been about 400 737MAXes produced over two years, average time in service 1 year, so figure 400 plane-years. Figure about 8 flight hours per day, so 3658400=1.2 million flight hours, 600,000 flight hours per accident or 1.5 fatal accidents per million hours. The U.S. motor vehicle accident rate is about 1.2 fatalities per 100,000,000 vehicle miles travelled. Figure a car's average speed is 30mph so 1.2 fatalities per 3.3 million hours = 0.36 fatalities per million hours. Therefore on an hourly basis, the 737MAX is very roughly 5x more dangerous than driving. OTOH the 737MAX averages about 400mph, so per mile it's probably something like 2-3x safer.
- snuxoll 7y ago
  The most dangerous parts of flight are during takeoff and landing, something Boeing didn’t seem to accurately account for in the design of the 737 Max’s safety systems. If you’re over 10K feet in the air there is some room for recovery procedures, but if you haven’t reached cruising altitude you have much less time before a plane finds itself impacting the ground. Per-mile travelled isn’t an adequate standard to compare aircraft with other modes of transit when talking about safety.
  - matt-attack 7y ago
    I think per hour of use would be a better metric.
- codedokode 7y ago
  There might be other differences. On the road, a lot depends on your style of driving, whether you are careful, but in case with a plane, you cannot do anything to make the flight safer.
  - cameldrv 7y ago
    Yes, but on the other hand you can't do very much to make it more dangerous either. If you show up to your flight drunk, you're no more likely to crash.

by trimbo 7y ago

yitosda 7y ago

Should be "deaths / person-miles" when comparing to driving.

quietbritishjim 7y ago
I don't think it should, because if I didn't fly to the other side of the world for a holiday then I wouldn't replace that journey with a drive of the same number of miles. Besides, when people describe flying as "safer than driving", the implication is that you're more likely to end up dying one way than the other. So any measure of "deaths per x" (x is miles, hours, or whatever) needs to be followed with "typical x per lifetime".

cameldrv 7y ago

Roughly: There have been about 400 737MAXes produced over two years, average time in service 1 year, so figure 400 plane-years. Figure about 8 flight hours per day, so 3658400=1.2 million flight hours, 600,000 flight hours per accident or 1.5 fatal accidents per million hours. The U.S. motor vehicle accident rate is about 1.2 fatalities per 100,000,000 vehicle miles travelled. Figure a car's average speed is 30mph so 1.2 fatalities per 3.3 million hours = 0.36 fatalities per million hours. Therefore on an hourly basis, the 737MAX is very roughly 5x more dangerous than driving. OTOH the 737MAX averages about 400mph, so per mile it's probably something like 2-3x safer.

snuxoll 7y ago
The most dangerous parts of flight are during takeoff and landing, something Boeing didn’t seem to accurately account for in the design of the 737 Max’s safety systems. If you’re over 10K feet in the air there is some room for recovery procedures, but if you haven’t reached cruising altitude you have much less time before a plane finds itself impacting the ground. Per-mile travelled isn’t an adequate standard to compare aircraft with other modes of transit when talking about safety.
- matt-attack 7y ago
  I think per hour of use would be a better metric.
codedokode 7y ago
There might be other differences. On the road, a lot depends on your style of driving, whether you are careful, but in case with a plane, you cannot do anything to make the flight safer.
- cameldrv 7y ago
  Yes, but on the other hand you can't do very much to make it more dangerous either. If you show up to your flight drunk, you're no more likely to crash.