It took a long time for aircraft pilots to discover that height is actually good with airplanes. After a few seconds, you are at terminal velocity. This ends up

It took a long time for aircraft pilots to discover that height is actually good with airplanes. After a few seconds, you are at terminal velocity. This ends up being only a few hundred meters. After that, you have a few thousand meters before the air gets too thin to breathe. So, the higher up you went, the more time you would have to react to issues that arise. Largely, you can measure the height of the airplane in mistakes. It takes time to fix a mistake. You have to first realise you are in a mistake, then you have to take in information, then you have to decide what to do, then you have to do it (the OODA loop). Since you reach terminal velocity rather quickly, it's all about the time you have left before you reach the ground and die. So in airplanes, the higher you are, paradoxically, the safer you are.