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I haven't by any means been keeping count but it does feel like there have been a lot more incidents that usual this year, and certainly a lot more fatalities.

I haven't by any means been keeping count but it does feel like there have been a lot more incidents that usual this year, and certainly a lot more fatalities. What I can't work out whether that's recency bias, or because I've been watching a lot of MentourPilot with our daughters so I'm simply more attuned to this kind of news, or if there really are more of them. I certainly don't know if the rate of incidents per passenger mile flown is higher than usual.

jordanb 1y ago
Probably chickens coming home to roost on the 2000s-era "flying is ultra-safe now, time to deregulate, disinvest, and capture value from efficiencies"
- gedy 1y ago
  Deregulation has been a thing for 40-50 years
- wat10000 1y ago
  DCA was good old-fashioned complacency and normalization of deviance. Aside from that, this year has been unremarkable in aviation safety.
FridayoLeary 1y ago
There were enough that he made a video discussing it. Maybe because they've been particularly high profile incidents. Here's a list of plane crashes. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_accidents_and_incidents_involving_commercial_aircraft https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_accidents_and_incide...
quantumfissure 1y ago
No, it's not worse. If you look through the list of deadly plane accidents, the last year has been average (4 vs. 3 avg). Since the deadly DCA collision in January, there are things making the news now that would never have in the past, so it seems like it's worse. Especially if the plane has "Boeing" written on the side. For example, hitting animals, tire blowouts, or ground equipment bumping into planes, which grounds them for inspection. When I worked for a major airline, those things are all actually pretty common and happen everywhere, all the time. It's just a method used to stoke fear and feed clicks. People find the most minute thing to complain about. Recently, there was an article about the antiquated FAA system using floppies. While the system is old and showing it's cracks, saying it uses floppies just makes it sound worse then it is. As of 2020, our mx crew were still plugging a Windows 98 laptop with DOS into Embraers and Bombardier Dash8s, and used floppies in Boeings (no Airbus or ATRs in our fleet for comparison).
- chucksmash 1y ago
  Maybe globally it's an average year but the DCA crash alone makes it an extraordinary year in US commercial aviation. Not all crashes are created equal. A 10 person Cessna disappearing near Nome, Alaska !== mid-air collision above the Potomac. If you're looking at US news sources, I don't think you need to resort to clickbait and fearmongering to justify the increased focus.
  - quantumfissure 1y ago
    There is a media difference though since the DCA crash. Military and small planes (<10 PAX) crash all the time. We just never heard about it until after January. My point is the same, media sees crash, tries to drive clickage. On a personal level, I know three people that have died in small plane crashes in the Alaska wilderness in the last 15 years, which is so common that it didn't even get on local news. I have acquaintances that were in involved in two others elsewhere over the last few years. Small planes are unbelievably dangerous. Commercial jets, not so much.
    - fhdkweig 1y ago
      > My point is the same, media sees crash, tries to drive clickage. In 2012, in a rush to break the news, WGN 9 in Chicago mistook the set of Chicago Fire tv show for a real crash. https://q1057.com/news-anchor-mistakes-movie-set-for-plane-crash/ https://q1057.com/news-anchor-mistakes-movie-set-for-plane-c... https://metro.co.uk/2012/12/01/plane-crash-telly-as-chicago-wgn-tv-news-anchors-mistake-tv-set-for-real-life-3078584/ https://metro.co.uk/2012/12/01/plane-crash-telly-as-chicago-...
    - sokoloff 1y ago
      Small planes are about twice as safe per mile as motorcycles, all-cause to all-cause. Now, there’s planes running out of fuel and drunk driving on cycles that some operators might choose to exclude from their own risk calculations, but it’s a little over one order of magnitude riskier than cars. Whether that’s unbelievably dangerous is up to personal judgment.
    - 1y ago

jordanb 1y ago

Probably chickens coming home to roost on the 2000s-era "flying is ultra-safe now, time to deregulate, disinvest, and capture value from efficiencies"

gedy 1y ago
Deregulation has been a thing for 40-50 years
wat10000 1y ago
DCA was good old-fashioned complacency and normalization of deviance. Aside from that, this year has been unremarkable in aviation safety.

FridayoLeary 1y ago

There were enough that he made a video discussing it. Maybe because they've been particularly high profile incidents. Here's a list of plane crashes. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_accidents_and_incidents_involving_commercial_aircraft https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_accidents_and_incide...

quantumfissure 1y ago

No, it's not worse. If you look through the list of deadly plane accidents, the last year has been average (4 vs. 3 avg). Since the deadly DCA collision in January, there are things making the news now that would never have in the past, so it seems like it's worse. Especially if the plane has "Boeing" written on the side. For example, hitting animals, tire blowouts, or ground equipment bumping into planes, which grounds them for inspection. When I worked for a major airline, those things are all actually pretty common and happen everywhere, all the time. It's just a method used to stoke fear and feed clicks. People find the most minute thing to complain about. Recently, there was an article about the antiquated FAA system using floppies. While the system is old and showing it's cracks, saying it uses floppies just makes it sound worse then it is. As of 2020, our mx crew were still plugging a Windows 98 laptop with DOS into Embraers and Bombardier Dash8s, and used floppies in Boeings (no Airbus or ATRs in our fleet for comparison).

chucksmash 1y ago
Maybe globally it's an average year but the DCA crash alone makes it an extraordinary year in US commercial aviation. Not all crashes are created equal. A 10 person Cessna disappearing near Nome, Alaska !== mid-air collision above the Potomac. If you're looking at US news sources, I don't think you need to resort to clickbait and fearmongering to justify the increased focus.
- quantumfissure 1y ago
  There is a media difference though since the DCA crash. Military and small planes (<10 PAX) crash all the time. We just never heard about it until after January. My point is the same, media sees crash, tries to drive clickage. On a personal level, I know three people that have died in small plane crashes in the Alaska wilderness in the last 15 years, which is so common that it didn't even get on local news. I have acquaintances that were in involved in two others elsewhere over the last few years. Small planes are unbelievably dangerous. Commercial jets, not so much.
  - fhdkweig 1y ago
    > My point is the same, media sees crash, tries to drive clickage. In 2012, in a rush to break the news, WGN 9 in Chicago mistook the set of Chicago Fire tv show for a real crash. https://q1057.com/news-anchor-mistakes-movie-set-for-plane-crash/ https://q1057.com/news-anchor-mistakes-movie-set-for-plane-c... https://metro.co.uk/2012/12/01/plane-crash-telly-as-chicago-wgn-tv-news-anchors-mistake-tv-set-for-real-life-3078584/ https://metro.co.uk/2012/12/01/plane-crash-telly-as-chicago-...
  - sokoloff 1y ago
    Small planes are about twice as safe per mile as motorcycles, all-cause to all-cause. Now, there’s planes running out of fuel and drunk driving on cycles that some operators might choose to exclude from their own risk calculations, but it’s a little over one order of magnitude riskier than cars. Whether that’s unbelievably dangerous is up to personal judgment.
  - 1y ago