Slashdot Mirror

I have found that cell phone users have actually tried to run me down on the motorcycle. Hold the phone, don't hold the phone, there is little difference once any thought provoking question is asked. The person on the phone is no longer giving operation of their vehicle proper attention. I would like to see the Driving Under the Influence laws modified to include cell phone usage. Anyone using one for non-emergency use while operating a vehicle should be subject to DUI laws and the appropriate insurance penalties. Want to make a call? Pull over so others won't be killed.

The conclusion of that Mythbusters episode was that using a cell phone was as impairing as drunk driving. If you do not believe Mythbusters, check out the NTSB (staff usage ban), NTSB (2006 CDL recommended ban), NTSB (2005 teen ban) or the Center for Transportation Research News. They know what the rest of us survivors do, that these people are dangerous.

What? Where did that come from? The link in the summary points to the slashdot posting about the airliner that overflew its destination by a bit. THAT summary talks about the crew using their laptops during the flight. However, I am not sure that's the case. In fact, I am led to believe that they had both nodded off.

They did not nod off, they were distracted by their laptops. Read the NTSB report.

Reactions like that? Totaling over $2 billion for a SINGLE day by a handful of people?

Airplane crashes are part of an airline's operating expense. You have four airliners purposly crashed in 2001, look how many crashes that link shows that AREN'T terrorist caused.

The WTC destroyed and Pentagon damaged? Look at the cost of a single natural disaster like Katrina or the wildfires they regularly have in California and Florida.

There was a single day event here in Springfield on March 12, 2006. As I walked through the rubble I was astounded, and thought of the terrorists. If they could see the damage done here they'd give up, knowing that nothing they could do could possibly hurt us.

Your fears are unfounded and irrational. That terrorist attack did NOT bring the economy down, and fewer people were killed than die annually on our highways -- almost fifteen times fewer. I'd like to see that TSA money go to guard rails where it might actually do some good.

The system you refer to is not intended to work the way you describe or do you wish to dispute the NTSB accident report on AA587? The pilot acted as he had been (improperly) trained to do and that's what caused the accident. From the A320 on, Airbus have had fly-by-wire systems, which prevent such errors from resulting in accidents and is the main reason why Airbus have the best safety record.

http://www.ntsb.gov/Pressrel/2009/091026.html says they DID have the cockpit speaker on. They are both very experienced pilots with long records of safe flying. Hard to believe they could do something like this. Everyone makes mistakes, even (especially!) pilots (I know I have) but...wow. Is the crew scheduling system locally installed software or something? Doesn't it need a network connection to be demonstrated? I'm not sure how they could have possibly connected with the ground although maybe they had onboard wireless Internet and were using it like the passengers. Any logs or anything to corroborate laptop use? Perhaps logs/file timestamps on the laptop itself? So far it looks like the CVR isn't going to be terribly useful. Flight data recorder will probably just show the plane flying smoothly on autopilot which doesn't tell us much about whether they were asleep or on laptops etc.

You might start w/this little NTSB report about a UAV in the national airspace system.

http://www.ntsb.gov/ntsb/brief.asp?ev_id=20060509X00531&key=1

3 incidents involving Boeing 727 airliners. http://www.ntsb.gov/ntsb/brief.asp?ev_id=68127&key=0 http://www.ntsb.gov/ntsb/brief.asp?ev_id=20001214X36226&key=1 http://www.ntsb.gov/ntsb/brief.asp?ev_id=20001212X22451&key=1

3 incidents involving Boeing 727 airliners. http://www.ntsb.gov/ntsb/brief.asp?ev_id=68127&key=0 http://www.ntsb.gov/ntsb/brief.asp?ev_id=20001214X36226&key=1 http://www.ntsb.gov/ntsb/brief.asp?ev_id=20001212X22451&key=1

3 incidents involving Boeing 727 airliners. http://www.ntsb.gov/ntsb/brief.asp?ev_id=68127&key=0 http://www.ntsb.gov/ntsb/brief.asp?ev_id=20001214X36226&key=1 http://www.ntsb.gov/ntsb/brief.asp?ev_id=20001212X22451&key=1

How about two examples of where mechanical controls have failed? Maybe another Boeing example?

OK, let's say you can cut the rate of death by a factor of 10 by driving safely.

There are, on average, 40000 automobile deaths per year in the U.S., or roughly 1 per 7500 people. So a safe driver's risk of dying in a car accident would be 1 in 75000.

http://www.ntsb.gov/aviation/Paxfatal.htm

But there are only 16 deaths per year, on average for the past six years, due to airline crashes in the United States. That's 1 per 18,750,000 people.

So even if you could reduce your chances of dying in a car crash by a factor of 100, airline travel would still be significantly safer than driving.

Fossett's accident is not the only publicly available information on aircraft accidents. All reported aircraft accidents and incidents are publicly available. Online even. Don't believe me?

There have been several serious incidents involving lithium batteries and air cargo. We've been lucky, so far. Maybe people will take it seriously if the next incident produces a bunch of dead passengers.

http://www.ntsb.gov/events/2006/philadelphiapa/iic_opening_text.htm

In June 1999, a steel gas pipeline ruptured near Bellingham, Wash., killing two children and an 18-year-old, and injuring eight others. A subsequent investigation found that a computer failure just prior to the accident locked out the central control room operating the pipeline, preventing technicians from relieving pressure in the pipeline.

The flying Pinto crashed and burned:

http://www.fordpinto.com/mitzar1.htm

http://www.ntsb.gov/ntsb/brief.asp?ev_id=84720&key=0

http://www.ntsb.gov/speeches/rosenker/mvr071017.html

You can peruse the NTSB files http://www.ntsb.gov/events/TWA800/default.htm Or read the short version http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TWA_800

The center wing tanks were low in quantity and sit over the air conditioning packs which ran at the gate before departure, creating the jet A / oxygen vapor necessary for an explosion.

NTSB did not produce findings that the fuel quantity circuit was unsafe. Cracking in aging aircraft electrical lines is well known. Probable cause was high power circuit in same raceway arced over to fuel quantity circuit and arc terminated in fuel tank.

If this is accurate, then optical power delivery would effectively prevent a repeat. But new planes are getting nitrogen inerting systems for their fuel tanks. So while the chosen solution is backward, it solves one argument for optical power delivery.

Because he wasn't doing it safely. You want to hang off the side of a highway and get yourself or someone else killed hanging an electric sign for an advertiser, go ahead. But if the city or state agency sends an employee to do that without the proper safety precautions and that worker (or an innocent bystander) gets killed, that agency will be held accountable.

And unfortunately, accidents do happen.

Wonko the very sane very smart.

Could you provide some examples you saw and experienced where people performance on US subs deterioated during your tenure in the Navy? Nothing classified please.

Also see the Norfolk sub fleet stand down. 01/11/2007
http://content.hamptonroads.com/story.cfm?story=117428&ran=182798&tref=po

The USS Greenville and Ehime Maru near Oahu, Hawaii, 02/09/2001
http://www.ntsb.gov/publictn/2005/MAB0501.htm

Thanks,
Jim

In 1999, the toll from car accidents was estimated to be $137 billion.

>>Exaggerate uncommon risks -- for example, air travel is safer than cars but because car accidents are common they are seen as less risky

>Maybe because everyone involved in an air plane crash usually dies. Automobile deaths are much less. There's this idea of risk = probability * impact. In the case of automobiles, probability is high but the impact is low. It's the other way around in aircraft failures.

That's actually exactly what he's talking about: risk = probability * impact. The problem is if the probability is 0.2 and the impact is 0.2, people unconsciously assume that it's not as bad as something where the probability is 0.000000001 but the impact is 1.0 -- because they're primarily basing their decision on the perceived value of the impact, not on the probability*impact product. As Schneier has said elsewhere, if you read about it in newspapers it probably isn't dangerous. It's the things that are so common they aren't news, that are the dangers you need to worry about, because those are the ones you're very likely to face.

By the way, most airplane crashes aren't fatal. Go to the NTSB aviation accident database and do some lookups on any year you care to choose. Most big commercial jet crashes have high fatality rates but the majority of crashes are small planes carrying 1-4 people and the majority survive. Like the people who are only looking at impact but think they're looking at risk, you're talking with your heart and not your mind when you say that most airplane crashes are fatal. They're not. The public perceives that they are. That's because the public is lousy at risk assessment.

You are wrong. Sorry ;-). It isn't your fault, though, the media really didn't make it clear. Here is all of the evidence:

Take a look at the NTSB report about flight 93: http://www.ntsb.gov/info/Flight%20_Path_%20Study_UA93.pdf . At Between 9:58 and 10:00am, the plane was at/below 5,000 feet (and never went much above 5,000 feet). From the Mousaui trial/wikipedia article that you linked to, "Only two phone calls, one by Edward Felt and one by flight attendant CeeCee Lyles, came from cell phones -- both at 9:58 a.m, shortly before the plane crashed.[14]" Note that the plane was below 5,000 feet at that time. From the Mousaui trial and wikipedia article, every other phone made on flight 93 was done using a credit card phone (read the flight 93 section on Telephone Calls).

The evidence is all there, cell phones don't work at altitude. Most people don't read the evidence, though, sadly. I'll stand by my point: cell phones on planes are useless (and dangerous).

Cheers,
Reid

But what happens if there's a spectacular crash or three?

It will be blamed on "terrorists". Like with Lockerbe The public must not be allowed to think the equipment is as defective as it is. The carbon fiber issue is a legitimate one. We have have 60-70 year old aluminum planes flying today in relative safety. And there's lots of 40 year old pressurized airplanes still in service. I will never trust even 20 year old carbon fiber to hold up.

In the event of a passenger jet crash, probability is that everyone will die. If everyone does not die, the statistics still favor a majority of the passengers being killed in the crash.

Sorry to burst your bubble, but the actual data from the NTSB shows that there is less than a 10% chance of a fatality in any single accident for scheduled US airline operations. The data from 1987 to 2006 shows a total of 628 accidents, but only 60 of those had any fatalities at all (Note: their definition of an accident is essentially "aircraft gets damaged, or anyone gets injured"). For the accidents with fatalities, an average of 36.6 people died per accident. Thus much less than half of the people on the aircraft die in each fatal accident. The data over that period shows 0.018 fatal accidents per 100,000 flights, or about one fatal accident in 5,500,000 flights.

Here is the source of the "1 in 5051" figure cited by the GP.
http://www.nsc.org/lrs/statinfo/odds.htm
The methodology is also explained on that page. (Note, the NSC has many other interesting statistics and reports on this and related topics.)

Basically, the number of airplane crash deaths in the US was divided by the entire population of the US in the year of the study (2003). The data was presented in two forms, annual odds of dying a particular way and lifetime odds of dying a particular way. This means that all of the following discussion is directly relevant only to someone living (and/or dying!) in the US.

The airplane crash numbers were 1 in 391,981 (annual odds) and 1 in 5051 (lifetime odds). This means that the "1 in 5051" figure is the odds of a given person that died having died in a plane crash.

The odds of a person who died in a given year having died in a plane crash are 1 in 391,981. These numbers are NOT directly translatable into an individual's odds of dying each time they get onto an airplane. For that, you would have to know how many flights over US territory there are in a given year and how many plane crashes occur in that same time (since the odds of dying are roughly equal to the odds of a plane crash).

For an exact calculation, you'd need to know how many people flew on those flights (the aggregate would be ok), and how many people died in crashes (again, the aggregate is ok). From that, you could determine the odds of dying on any given plane flight.

The FAA also has some interesting data. The target safety rate for the U.S. is 0.010 fatal accidents per 100,000 departures (appears to include all flights, commercial and private, even though the statistic is called the "Commercial Airline Fatal Accident Rate"), though the current rate in 2007 is 0.023 fatal accidents per 100,000 departures.

http://www.faa.gov/data_statistics/accident_incide nt/

See the "Airline Fatal Accident Rate" PDF on the linked page.

For the below data, FAA/NTSB reports were used. Much more data is available at these sites for anyone who wants to do more analysis. For example, the commercial data below is a summary of Part 121, Part 135, and On-demand Part 135. The accident rates were much higher for the "On-demand Part 135" which not what we typically fly as commercial passengers.

Also: http://www.ntsb.gov/Publictn/A_Stat.htm has annual summarized reports.

The data for 2003 is:

Commercial Air Carriers:
Background data in 2003 (rounded to nearest whole million/billion):
639 million passengers boarded commercial airplanes
8 billion miles were flown
11 million departures
23 million flight hours
Accidents:
Total: 130
Fatal: 21
Deaths: 66
Fatal accidents per departure: 1.9091x10^(-6) (1 in 523,810)
Fatal accidents per hour: 9.130x1-^(-7) (1 in 1,095,239)

General Aviation:
Total Accidents: 1739
Fatal Accidents: 352
Injuries:
Fatal: 632
Serious: 324
Minor: 523
Involved but Not Injured: 1697

Interesting study. But described in a misleading way.

In particular, since they only looked at accidents with some deaths and some survivors, you can't compare the risks or make intelligent tradeoffs.

Naive readers might assume that if 49% survive in the front but 69% survive in the rear, then you are 69/49=1.4 times more likely to live in the back.

But most fatal plane accidents result in everyone dying and those were left out. So the difference is much less. And they don't help you find out how much less.

Unanswered questions:

  * how many totally-fatal accidents happened over that period of time?
  * how many people died in the ones they studied?
  * how many people died if you include all the accidents?

And for another study:
  * what about injuries - did those vary by location?

Some information on some of the years is at
  http://www.ntsb.gov/aviation/Table6.htm

I've heard that some of our attack helicopters can lose significant percentages of the rotor surface and still stay aloft, [...] Was I lied to?

>To say nothing of the difficulties in relying on market forces when consumers lack any clear way of judging the safety of a flight they are planning to buy a ticket on.

You can check out the NTSB's accident database here (only for US based carriers/aircraft). It provides the accident history for an airline, aircraft type, etc.

http://www.ntsb.gov/ntsb/query.asp

The cause isn't "mysterious" at all. According to the NTSB report, the crash was caused when vapor in the center-wing tank of the 747 ignited and the explosion caused the forward fuselage of the plane to be blown free, and of course a plane with that kind of damage is no longer flyable, even if the cockpit still had anything to control. The NTSB recommended that design changes be made to reduce ignition hazards in partially-empty fuel tanks as well as changes to procedures, training, and a few other items.

Don't be so happy to let ignorance, stupidity, fearmongering, and the conspiracy bandwagon get in the way of understanding the facts. It is refusal like this to confront what actually happens in crashes like this that reduce the effectiveness of the work being done to save lives in the future.

>even most turbines on jet aircraft are built to contain their massive, extremely high-speed turbines,

I'm not sure I believe this.
Here's a 2004 NTSB report on a helicopter crash where the entire turbine wheel shot out of the helicopter after breaking.
Here are reports of four uncontained turbine failures on Delta aircraft in the last 10 years, using recent aircraft.
John Deakin who has 36,000 hours flying 747's, says that often a turbine can operate for hundreds of hours after throwing a blade, so it's not like it's always a catastrophe, but a cursory survey of google and the NTSB literature indicates that there's no way failures of the turbine section are always, or even usually, contained.

By the way, everything other than fighter jets already mixes the turbine exhaust with ambient air: they're called high-bypass engines, and they're essentially ducted turboprop engines.

In terms of mere size, this is comparable to steam engines of 1904. The Interborough Rapid Transit Company (the "IRT" to New Yorkers) built a plant in 1904 with a total output of 132,000 horsepower. The compound steam engines had bigger cylinders than this Diesel; 42 inches and 86 inches, compared to 38 inches for the new marine Diesel.

That was the high point of piston engines. Electrical generation was already converting from pistons to turbines, and even that 1904 IRT plant had a few smaller steam turbines.

There have been much more powerful marine powerplants than this, but they're usually multi-engine turbine systems. There's an annoying tendency in commercial shipping to have only one engine on large ships, which occasionally leads to accidents.

2. Design, Testing, and Failure Modes of Lithium Batteries.

* Testimony about lithium batteries will include discussions of their benefits and their hazards, as well as their safety features and failure histories.

3. Operations and Regulations concerning Lithium Batteries.

* Discussion under this topic will focus on the requirements involving air transportation of lithium batteries--including differences in these requirements between passenger and cargo aircraft--and ways in which the hazards associated with lithium batteries can be minimized and finally,

4. Aircraft Fire Detection and Suppression Systems and Regulations

* The Safety Board has issued recommendations in the past for incorporation of detection and suppression systems on commercial aircraft. Discussion under this topic will include a review of technology and regulations of these systems, difficulties and challenges that these systems may bring, and differences in these areas as they pertain to both passenger and cargo aircraft.

Several lithium battery incidents have occurred in recent years, including a lithium-ion battery fire that occurred less than two months ago on an airplane in Chicago. Flight attendants used extinguishers on an overhead bag that was smoking. The bag was removed from the airplane and placed on the ramp, where it then caught fire. The fire apparently started from a spare laptop battery being carried in the bag.

Yes, the NTSB is very good at determining the root cause of airplane accidents - if it wasn't on the NTSB's site itself I don't think I'd believe the cause of this one.

It is the NTSB that researches things like this, not the FAA per se. They are very methodical and precise with their work. They are slow to publish thier findings, this doesn't mean they are slow to identify the cause, just very carefull that they have come to the correct conclusion. Check out the NTSB aircraft accident database, this contains detail over every aircraft accident reasearched by them for several decades ( 1962 ) http://www.ntsb.gov/ntsb/query.asp

Also, more flying machines have been destroyed while attempting to land in Burbank than while attempting to land on the Moon.

The statistical data flat out contradicts your conclusion, despite your anecdotal evidence. Take a look at the NTSB accident reports at www.ntsb.gov. Human error is attributable as the cause of accident in close to 80% of cases (see http://www.ntsb.gov/publictn/2004/ARC0401.pdf and http://www.ntsb.gov/publictn/2004/ARG0401.pdf for an annual summary of accident data for 2000 as an example). Aircraft related causes were a factor in less than one third of cases. One can always find anecdotal evidence supporting your point of view, but skim across a listing of recent accident reports and one quickly finds that human error is the overwhelming majority cause in most accidents. Automating the cockpit and reducing the human element therefore is the best way to reduce the number of accidents in the sky.

The statistical data flat out contradicts your conclusion, despite your anecdotal evidence. Take a look at the NTSB accident reports at www.ntsb.gov. Human error is attributable as the cause of accident in close to 80% of cases (see http://www.ntsb.gov/publictn/2004/ARC0401.pdf and http://www.ntsb.gov/publictn/2004/ARG0401.pdf for an annual summary of accident data for 2000 as an example). Aircraft related causes were a factor in less than one third of cases. One can always find anecdotal evidence supporting your point of view, but skim across a listing of recent accident reports and one quickly finds that human error is the overwhelming majority cause in most accidents. Automating the cockpit and reducing the human element therefore is the best way to reduce the number of accidents in the sky.

Sorry, but as a mechanical engineering (who works with a lot of civil engineers), I can't let this one pass. You wrote:

I lie awake at night dreaming of only having to solve a problem as simple a bridge. It has only one use case: vehicles of a known weight with a known wheel surface traveling in predetermined paths at a predetermined rate of speed.

and then you wrote:

people would be in an uproar about all the deaths that are only possible because of the bridges: people jump off of them, cars crash over the guard rails, tornadoes and hurricanes wipe them out, and if they are not maintained properly they eventually fall to the ground under their own weight.

All of those factors do need to be accounted for in bridge design, along with many others (including wind loading, vibration, earthquake stability, pedestrian 'missiles', grade, water control, surface icing, freeze/thaw cycles, underbridge clearance, sewage & water/hazmat runoff, traffic flow, sight lines, and so on). Go read up on your state building codes. Or better yet, go down to your local college engineering library and have a look at SAE/ASTM/ANSI engineering standards for bridge design.

As for:

Books could be filled with the death stories of people killed by bridges

Amazon gives quite a few hits when searching "bridge disasters" books. Also, check around the NHTSA site some time.

And lets not forget that if a faulty bridge does fail (even in a non-fatal incident), the engineer that stamped the design may very well go the jail.

Is bridge design harder/simpler than software design? I don't know, but I do know that it's far from "simple."

[As an aside, you wrote:

Also, if you dig down deep enough on the Earth, there is always something solid to anchor the bridge.

While it's true that you can always reach bedrock if you dig deep enough, a lot of times it's not practical to dig deep enough to bedrock. For example, the Big Dig slurry walls go down more than 100 ft in some places and don't hit bedrock. In those cases, you have to different techniques (tiebacks, heavy masses, soil mixing/grouting etc) to anchor your structure. Not every location is like Manhattan]

to stay away from computer controlled airplanes? Wired or wireless. Not that hydraulics are any better. I think I'll just take the train or a boat. And don't try to convince me with statistics. I'm a lousy gambler.

to stay away from computer controlled airplanes? Wired or wireless. Not that hydraulics are any better. I think I'll just take the train or a boat. And don't try to convince me with statistics. I'm a lousy gambler.

To all the people talking about how dangerous a private piston plane is, let's remember what it takes to fly one:

Also, compare an airport to say any part of the road system. An airport has real people directing each plane to a specific altitude to hold until they are allowed to land at a specific runway. All pilots are in communication with each other, so even at tiny airports without an ATC, landing can be coordinated. Compare this to the relative chaos of roads, where thousands of (barely-trained) drivers are all going along with only their own direction to guide them.

My father is a pilot; as a result, I've seen hundred of takeoffs and landings and nary an accident. According to the FAA and NTSB, there appear to have been about 25 General Aviation (non-commercial) accidents reported in January in the U.S. See http://www.ntsb.gov/ntsb/query.asp for information of this type. I would feel safer flying in a private airplane than driving in a car almost any time--a good pilot (and most private pilots are good) will not fly in dangerous conditions and is a lot better trained than your average driver.

make sure you keep the jackscrews lubed!

No shit. You know it will be a bad day when your tail section shears off.

There's a reason I only went parachuting twice. The first time was at a podunk jump center, and I wrote it off as such. The second time, I realized why the pilot of a jump plane always wears a chute too. The altimiter and TBI were both placarded, and they still flew it. If I'd seen it before takeoff I'd never have gone up, but I was the 2nd one in, and stuck in the back. Oy. Never mind that I prefer to fly than jump by a large margin.

The issue of flight schools going under is part of the reason I'm paying real money for ground school, as I explained above. The insurance rates killed a few near me (all 3 had accidents on their records, one fatal), underscoring the need for vigilent instructors and uncompromising safety policies. Not to mention the problems with FBOs kicking the private pilots and clubs off the field and charging insane fees to everyone but the b-jet crowd to keep them away, but that's a different rant as well.

I'm interested in building hours for sure, but only advancing in capability once I"m truly comfortable, ie, rec/sport-student, then private and XC. Only then will I fly the EZ, whenever it gets finished. I'm flying ultralights now, since it's been a few years since I did it last with any regularity. I'll hopefully be starting ground school and seat time this winter, for a springtime solo. It should be fun. Also note that due to the fundamental nature of the EZs, I'll need complex (retractable nost strut makes it a rectracable gear aircraft) and high performance certs before I can get insured on it. But like I said, it's at least 8-10 years out.

No John Denver syndrome here. Part of my day job is human interface design. What killed JD was the impossibly poor location of the fuel tank switch and the highly nonlinear and unmarked sight glasses for the EZs fuel tanks. The NTSB investigation [pdf] showed that the only way to switch tanks was to reach over the pilot's left shoulder, requiring the right foot to be braced against something, like the right rudder pedal. The whole thing was terribly tragic and could have been avoided if someone had thought about the user a little bit. Thankfully N555JD was the only EZ on record with the wonky fuel selector position. Mine will have proper fuel sensors and calibrated sight glasses. I'm something of an instrumentation freak. Maintaining situational awareness is impossible without reliable information.

Slats, flaps and big tires will slow you down some, but probably not as much as you think. I can't afford an IO540, so it'll be more like a used and abused 0-235 for mine, all 120HP of it for my > half ton aircraft.

My welding experience started as a youngster, and I can still gas weld steel tube 15 years later and lay a neat stack of dimes every time. I've never done gas-shielded welding, but I think it'd be easier, given the much greater control it affords. I'm looking forward to picking up a little TIG rig some time. I have designs on some aluminium fixtures for my table saw and drill press.

-dave

No one would design such a system.

At airspeeds in the range of 250 knots, where Flight 587 was operating at the time of the accident, it is virtually impossible for the pilot to command anything other than full rudder once he or she applies any rudder pedal force in excess of breakout.

The Aloha 243 accident was not caused by a pressurization failure. The depressurization was a secondary effect of the structural fatigue failure of the lap joints.

There has been an accident with the root cause of a pressurization failure with the loss of all aboard. It was a recent one, too (August 14). Helios 522 was a Boeing 737 which suffered a pressurization failure and crashed. Investigation is still underway. Those with long memories will also remember the 1999 crash of Payne Stewart's Learjet 35. http://www.ntsb.gov/ntsb/brief.asp?ev_id=20001212X 19931&key=1

WAAAAAAHHHH!!!!! I HAVE SIX MONTHS OF DRIVING EXPERIENCE AND THE INSURANCE COMPANIES INSIST I PAY MORE IN PREMIUMS! WAAAAAHHHH!!!!

you're 17? so, what, you've driven through maybe one season of snow? maybe? probably never driven more than 100 miles at once? probably encountered the tiniest fraction of all the possible woes that can occur on the road? rear-ending, flat tires, hydroplaning, windsheer, black ice, tailgaters, quick brakers?

teenage drivers account for 6% of all drivers on the road on the road, and yet you make up over 14% of the drivers involved in fatal automotive accidents. yeah, it's true. you do 20% of your driving at night, and yet, 50% of all teenage fatalities in automotive accidents occur at night.

teenage drivers are expensive to insure because you CAUSE ACCIDENTS. that's how teenagers DIE. 40% of all teenage deaths occur in AUTOMOTIVE ACCIDENTS. insurance companies have to pay out money when you die, and if you die more often, your premiums COST MORE.

insurance companies don't need to mine your individual data to declare teenagers unsafe drivers. you've done that pretty well on your own.

if i were as unreasonably whiny at 17 as you are, i'd have had to kick my own ass.

I'm sorry, I think your comment is hardly insightful. We've lost two shuttles (14 astronauts) in 113 flights. That's one dead per eight flights.

Let's compare to civil aviation. Take last year, 13 deaths in 10,547,000 flights. Ten million.

Going to space is hard, yes, but don't try to convince me that the shuttle is safe or the best way to get there.

Reference:
http://www.ntsb.gov/aviation/Table1.htm

Do you have any evidence for this? It seems a little implausible to me to argue that the airlines would say, "Gosh, maintenance on our planes isn't so important; it's ok if a few crash now and then." And it's doubly implausible that the FAA would be chill about that.

There are instances where airlines have been known to cut corners to save a buck.

This rather infamous accident was caused by excessive inputs to fly by wire (servo-based) controls. The forces generated were so intense that the rudder fell off.

I don't know based on my own experience, but it seems likely that a mechanical system, even a power assisted one, would have made such movements difficult or impossible.

D