Miscellaneous Forum

No. Air travel is still so much safer than crossing the street and driving. Plane travel keeps getting safer and safer and the number of fatal accidents, especially in developed countries, keeps dropping. Yes, it is sensational news when a large plane goes down and so many people are killed; but frankly, that is more related to how the press handles the event; negative news sells... Funny, that was my thought when I first flew on an A380, with 519 passengers plus crew. Front page stuff when the first one of those goes down....

Not at all. Considering the sheer number of aircraft in the air at any given time, commercial air crashes are near non existent. It is a bloody wonder there are not more of them. No, as you may have heard, the safest place to be in the world, is on a commercial aircraft, and if you would spend your life on a commercial aircraft, you have a better chance of staying alive, than anywhere else on the planet. What is hard to hear is when 2-300 people die at the same time, in the same place. That is all. Just today, several thousand people will die in car crashes, - but 1 or 2 or 3 at a time. If you use the same logic in that, - you would never set foot into a earth bound vehicle.

Wow Grumpy, talk about simultaneous typing.....and more or less the same words.....d:o)

Do you become "more concerned" when a bus crashes somewhere in the world killing perhaps 10 or 20 people. Like others, I think your implied logic is badly flawed.

Interesting facts there, For me I think I rather lose 1 or 2 people than to lose 300 simalutaneously.It's like Mass Murder to me

So you would rather lose one or two every hour of every day of every week than a few hundred perhaps once a year or more. Do the maths, my friend. I am also interested in your concept of murder. How do you define it?

Fergy I dont think we need to Compare a Bus and A plane, A bus will never Crash in the middle of the Cold Atlantic giving you no options of survival.

OH JUST SHUT UP! Grrrrrrrr I don't want to hear any of this today!!!!

No, it will go off the side of a mountain road down a several hundred foot ravine giving you no chance of survival. Do some basic research. As others (much more experienced travellers than I am) have already said, flying is statistically the safest way to travel.

Erik - not surprisingly either; we often seem to have similar opinions...

To soothe our jittery Sophia... Considering the percentage of flights that crash to the enormous amount that do not, the chances are very, very small. Like the other posters said, your chances of dying in a car crash - or even of disease - are much, much greater. As the few crashes which do occur are usually due to a mechanical or weather problem, fatalities incurred are certainly not classified as 'murder.' And people have been known to survive some crashes. You'll be fine, Soph!!!

Probably the worst conversation possible at this particular time for our Sophie. Sorry sweet'pea....d:o) I know it does not matter what we say good or bad, - for Soph it is a nightmare conversation. Logic over irrational fear works for most of us, but for those with a irrational fear of flying it is very real indeed. I know it does not mean much, but you WILL be just fine Sophie........d:o)

Yup, we all have our personal demons, don't we? Mine is a morbid fear of needles so there ya go. Our phobias may be different but most of us have at least one that makes us sweat buckets.

Apologies Soph, I didn't know it was a problem. All my responses were directed towards the member who initially proposed the question.

Oh dear - I do believe she's run off to huff into a paper bag. Hope not. What with Tropical Storm Debby raising cain in Florida, I'm not sure whether our friend is more afraid she WON'T get out of town or more afraid she WILL.

Tis said that the most dangerous part of a flight is the cab ride to/from the airport, but that does not include those who nearly died of fright on the cab - LOL

"In March 2011, a French judge filed preliminary manslaughter charges against Air France and Airbus over the crash" Manslaughter is more like murder to me, Anyway I never said which Is the safest transport, I was just giving my Opinion.I know for a fact that Air travel is the safest but when disaster struck no one will look at the stats but on how many people died.

Well, if most of us worried about the stats for how many people die in train (one every two hours, believe it or not), plane, car and other types transport accidents, we'd never get anyplace we couldn't walk to.

Walk?! What?! Walk and you'll be flattened by a bus, or trip over the sidewalk, or texting, walk into a tree, or get alien signals through that device that appears to be surgically implanted to one's ear, - and end up probed, giving interviews on really bad TV........d:o) Having crashed two airplanes, - I would still love to have a house where the street out front, - is an airstrip. (My friend Paul's brother John has one just like that, where every resident is a pilot and owns a plane, with a mini hangar where others have a garage. How friggin' cool is that?)

Ok, you have a point: we'd never leave the freakin' house. But klutz here could fall down the basement stairs and break her neck, I guess.

I know it was intentional but If it wasn't for Commercial Jets, WORLD TRADE CENTRE will still be standing today and close to 3000 people still alive.That's how disastrous planes can turn to be if ignored.

Paul, what exactly is the point you are trying to make here? Have you just got something against commercial aeroplanes? The WTC was not caused by commercial aeroplanes, it was caused by terrorists. "if ignored?" Who ignores them? I really am having difficulty trying to follow your argument here, if indeed it is an argument or do you just want to rant against air traffic against all the available evidence, much of which has ben pointed out to you here?

After reading my own note above about a house on an airstrip, it sounds like an elite and rich bunch of folks. Not so at all. A group of pilot friends decided to buy cheap an abandoned airstrip in the desert, and some are still in the building stages. Those guys have all they have in their plane and such. Johnny had a million dollar Mustang from WWII, but it meant he lived in a modest house and drove an old car. These guys live and breathe antique airplanes. Anyway..... The point is those planes are NOT ignored which is why there are so few crashes. Further, the WTC planes were used as weapons just like vans filled with explosives. Nothing to do with airplane safety. However Paul, I do get the feelings of frustration when there is a multi casualty crash, but it is what it is......d:o)

>That's how disastrous planes can turn to be if ignored Who is ignoring them? Why do you think we all have to be scanned/x-rayed/patted down before we get anywhere near a plane now? And that was not a 'crash' - that was an act of terrorism. It's very different. And it's not just planes: I remember some similar acts of terrorism involving some European trains. Look, you can't get out of bed in morning without taking some kind of risk. If planes bother you so much, you have a choice: don't fly.

No fergy, You dragging me to respond to your comments. I am just giving an Example of how disastrous an Airplane is...

@Odin... Atleast you understand my Outcry at last lol

"You dragging me to respond to your comments" I am not dragging you anywhere and I thought the concept of a forum was to respond to other people's comments and have a discussion. Did I miss something here and if so can you please enlighten me as to what it might be?

@Goodfish Planes are more safer than in the Past THAT I KNOW, but we have come along way and We can't afford to lose a crowd of people in 1 Air travel accident with the technology we now have.Its inexcusable, It's just hard to accept that many Souls(228) were lost in 1 Accident.

Yeah Paul, but no matter how tech we get, we will still have to live with the simple fact that, -hit happens! Yes?

Okay fergy,What i was trying to say is, One Commercial Jet accident is more serious than a one taxi on a street why ?, because many Souls are on that plane and We can't afford to lose all at once