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What NASA Won't Tell You About Air Safety
rabble writes "According to a report out of Washington, NASA wants to avoid telling you about how unsafe you are when you fly. According to the article, when an $8.5M safety study of about 24,000 pilots indicated an alarming number of near collisions and runway incidents, NASA refused to release the results. The article quotes one congressman as saying 'There is a faint odor about it all.' A friend of mine who is a general aviation pilot responded to the article by saying 'It's scary but no surprise to those of us who fly.'"
I fly a reasonable amount as a passenger (used to fly small private aircraft as well) on commercial airlines and I've seen quite a few planes that come by shockingly close. I was prepared early enough one day to get a reasonable pic out of a cheap little point and shoot here of another aircraft in reasonably close proximity, but this is by no means the closest I've seen planes fly to one another. One time flying over Columbia on this flight we followed *very* close to another large commercial airliner for quite some time. It was hard to get a picture given it was at night with a little point and shoot, but it was close enough for me to see people in windows in-between flashes of lightning. Granted this was in controlled conditions as we were flying almost in formation, but I've also seen planes flash by in close proximity flying in the opposite direction as well. Much closer than the 3-5 mile limit I understood was in place.
Given the increasing amount of air traffic, I would not be surprised to see incidents (not comforting given upcoming travel), but the shocking thing is that the FAA (and the public) is still dealing with a completely antiquated air traffic control system that like other aspects of our national infrastructure is woefully lacking, particularly around large airports.
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How is this really that bad? Even when the pilots suck, and the traffic controllers are asleep at the helm we still manage to be safer then driving. Seems to me like flying is pretty damn safe, and even better if everyone is paying attention to whats going on.
If i had one dollar for every brain you dont have, i would have $1.
The drive to the airport.
Flying is so much safer than driving to the airport it is not even funny.
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Is it really NASA as a whole. Keep in mind that until a year or so ago a single Bush-appointed kid was responsible for censoring all of NASA's press releases about basic science. The kid in question had no college degree, no background in science, and his sole qualification appeared to be having been head of the Texas young republicans at his school. This despite opposition from most of NASA.
Not to sound like some NASA apologist or something but in my experience with large institutions many of the things done "by NASA" or some other group are often the work of one or a few key individuals and many times may run counter to the very goals of the institution and most people involved in it. It wouldn't surprise me if the political appointee that replaced the kid is doing this.
"When two planes almost collide, they call it a near miss....IT'S A NEAR HIT! A collision is a near miss...::BOOM::...look, they nearly missed."
Living With a Nerd
But I'll let you know when I am.
Air travel is like hot dogs. Ignorance is bliss.
Seriously though, I try to remind myself that the pilots are just as interested in getting to the destination in one piece as I am.
I keep trying to pick fights, but I can't shake this Excellent karma.
I live within 10 miles of a major airport, and within 3 miles of a smaller "business" airport. Three nights ago I was outside on my balcony watching the sky and saw two planes coming from opposite directions converging towards one another. At first I was thinking, "Hmmm, those look like they're at relatively close altitude.". This quickly turned into "Are they really supposed to be flying like that?".
Very quickly thereafter, the planes are close enough that I realize one of them is a jumbo jet and the other is a small business commuter plane.
From what I could see on the ground, the planes passed through what appeared to be the same spot in the sky within about 4 seconds of one another. I was utterly astounded. Could it be that they really weren't communicating because they were from different airports? The biggest surprise is that there weren't any other planes in the area that I could see, so what was the need for their paths to converge like that?
If this doesn't call for exercising the Freedom of Information Act, I don't know what does. We payed that $8.5M for this study and just because someone doesn't like the results doesn't mean we're not entitled to see them.
why is NASA doing this? Isn't this the domain of the FAA and NTSB?
"I wish to God these calculations would have been made by steam." -Charles Babbage
"'There is a faint odor about it all.' "
Isn't that like Pigpen remarking on someone's bathing habits?
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
A few years back I was on a flight from Seattle to LAX and with a very chatty pilot. He said something like "In a minute we'll be having a very close look at a Cessna xxx. You won't have much time to see it because it is going at aaa mph and they're going at bbb mph so the closing speed is... Don't worry folks, they are in their lane and we're in ours" and shortly later this plane came whipping past at what seemed like touching distance. Now that was clearly not a close call, but if the pilot had not talked about it we'd probably have thought it was.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Amazing. Once upon a time, the only valid reason for withholding information was if it would affect the nation's security. Now, "commercial welfare" is just as valid as "national security".
How many other documents can now be hidden from public view, given the low bar of "could materially affect the public confidence"? Apparently, if you're not "confident", you're with the terrorists!
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
NASA keeps a voluntary database of incidents/accidents and safety concerns from pilots. The idea is that it can be totally anonymous. They want pilots to feel free to report safety concerns without fear of being fired or discriminated against by their current airline. The database is fully on-line and you can search it. Look at the facts: The American airline industry completes thousands of flights every day without a single issue. That is friggen AMAZING! The ATC has a very hard job, and they do it well. A big part of why things are so safe is the over-zealous approach pilots (most pilots) take to safety. There are several different ways to report problems. If you are at a major airport and break the rules (in a small plane for example) you can usually expect an FAA inspector to meet you at the tarmac to pull your ticket on the spot. If you don't take safety seriously word gets around fast. Your fellow pilots don't appreciate it.
http://asrs.arc.nasa.gov/
This program has been going for years and years. It helps make the skies above you safer. If there is an increase it is likely due to one of the major trends affecting aviation today. Fewer airports, more airplanes with smaller passenger sizes, more flights, younger pilots, etc. I highly doubt NASA is trying to deep-six some scary fact, they probably just didn't want to pay to deal with the fallout from a service that costs them dollars. They do it for free in the interest of safety. They should be applauded for their years of service to the aviation industry.
Keep in mind that the ASRS is in ADDITION to the NTSB and FAA programs for saftey (which also has searchable online-database).
I'm often mistaken, so this may be no exception, but isn't NASA's work in the public domain since it is a federal agency? How can they refuse to release to the taxpayers the results of taxpayer funding? At least the military has the excuse of "national security"... what is NASA's explanation for this failure to deliver on a service they billed us for?
You can run but you can't hide, except, apparently, along the Afghan-Pakistani border.
See the subject - why would NASA care about commercial air travel? (Can't RTFA yet, still at work).
NASA: "We need to take a minute or two away from flying vehicles filled with millions of tons of explosive liquids to lecture you about air safety. Cue the film, Biggles..."
... http://www.google.com/search?ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&sourceid=navclient&gfns=1&q=kapton+wiring+problems Kapton wiring by DuPont is a silent time bomb in most COMMERCIAL aircraft. This wiring is BANNED in MILITARY and NASA equipment but YOU fly surrounded by it not knowing the dangers.
http://www.rense.com/general79/wdx1.htm
Is it a "near miss" when a collision is narrowly avoided? or is it a "near miss" when two planes pass closer than they should to each other, but were really in no real danger of colliding? For example, on the freeway, cars sometimes swerve towards another car, then realize what they are doing, and move back into the center of their lane. Is that a "near accident," or just a normal occurrence? I'm serious about this. I'd really like to know what counts as a "near miss."
Isn't the safety of an activity determined by the number of actual accidents, and not by the number of near-accidents?
:-). However, I often find myself in the situation of almost making an accident.
For example, I've been driving about 14 years without ever causing an accident (or at least, none that I was involved in to know of
Fo example, you start to do a lane change, and suddenly, before you actually enter the other lane, you notice another car there, and abort the lane change. The point of driving experience and skill is it also helps you to cope with the near-accidents that your driving skills failed to prevent.
Surely something similar is relevant to flying too?
Important hint: DON'T PICK THE FISH.
Are you adequate?
Our AC friend above is 100% spot on-- vertical seperation allows much closer distances, both because altimeters are far more accurate and because vertical position doesnt change as quickly (think about it-- A jet can cover several miles within a pilots reaction time since it is traveling at ~600 mph-- Even if the engines failed completely, it would take longer to lose altitude.)
While that may be true regarding distance traveled, its about the same for time spent traveling.
Everywhere I've worked has been populated by slackers, incompetents and other people not doing their job fully. Why is surprising then that as it turns out, the airline industry is the same? Is it any surprise that corners are cut, that communication isn't always good and that faulty assumptions are made? It's this where everywhere. IF you're surprised by this, have you ever left your house and worked?
"If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar, A hope-er, a pray-er, a magic bean buyer
...inexplicable rise in the number of home-made Nigerian helicopters and Sputniks crowding the airspace.
> pilots said airlines were unaware how frequently safety incidents
> occurred that could lead to serious problems or even crashes,
> The survey's purpose was to develop a new way of tracking
> safety trends and problems the airline industry could address.
> revealing the findings could damage the public's confidence
> in airlines and affect airline profits.
So NASA, worried the industry could be overlooking some bugs, initiated a code review with the intent of creating a bug-tracking system. Four years and $8.5 million later, the project presumably completed, they didn't release - because it would expose bugs?
I wouldn't have thought it was NASA's role to cover-up airline industry problems. I'd expect airline industry non-sequitors like this to have been performed by the FAA and NTSB. NASA should restrict itself to losing their own design plans, and occasionally mucking up english-metric conversions.
Because it is (a) too damned expensive to put in rail lines and (b) the current system is slow enough most people can drive to their destinations faster, for less (gas) money.
If we still had legions of penny-a-day, disposable immigrants and virtually no opposition to laying track through high-value suburbs then we might have the ability to put in light rail. But we don't...on either count...so it will never happen. Rail is phenomenally expensive to put in, and nobody wants it in their back yard. It will never be commercially viable in the US except in dense areas (which, not too surprisingly, is what much of Europe looks like).
Also, high-speed rail has the same annoying problem as high-speed internet - the last mile is very tough to cover. Airports have that problem, too, but rail is going to have to do _better_ to compensate for the inherent slower travel speeds.
Besides - more rail traffic means more chances of collision, and I would guess (though I can't back it up) that there have been more US rail crashes in the last 5 years than US commercial airline crashes (including both passenger and freight).
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Look -- there's a time and place for modeling things, and a time and place to not. In particular, you should make a model of how risky something is only if you don't already have lots of data (because the model is essentially providing you with the data that you otherwise don't have).
But in America we have lots of great data on exactly how often planes crash. For one thing, airplane crashes are new. For another thing, detailed and consistent statistics are kept. And this very plentiful, real-world data says that planes flying too close aren't really a problem.
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No matter how many perceived 'near misses' there are, a near miss is still a miss. That is, a non-accident. The statistics for air safety haven't changed at all, and they have been fully disclosed and discussed ad nauseum.
Reporting a near miss does not increase the odds that you will be in an accident. What NASA is doing is expanding the research to include non-accident items. The only problem here is the media re-interpreting the data for their own sensationalist benefit.
Growing up we had a saying referring to how close something came to almost happening, but didn't ...
"Almost only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades."
"A government is a body of people, usually notably ungoverned." - Shepard Book Quoting Malcolm Reynolds
The problem with that is that those in-flight entertainment systems are probably designed to be economical with power (they don't want to heat up the seats, plus planes have a power budget to consider) and it's pretty damn hard to start a fire with seat material using only 5v at 200mA.
I read the internet for the articles.
The truth will set you free, but it's gonna piss you off first.
I wish I could find this sort of thing shocking, unbelievable, impossible, but it's sadly expected from this administration. Remember them lying about the safety of the air down at Ground Zero after the attack?
I'd seen disaster special after disaster special talking about how vulnerable NOLA was before Katrina hit. It hits and holy shit, nobody'd ever thunk it! I've seen report after report about how antiquidated our ATC system is and how it needs to be fixed. I used to think that it would take a big disaster and then things would be straightened out. I look at the New Olreans recovery effort and realize no, not even a disaster with massive loss of life will prompt change in these times. We're going to see two fully loaded jumbos crashing and burning from a midair and five years later, the system will just be five more years out of date.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
The airliner in that picture on your blog is not violating any recommended practices. The 3-5 miles is typical following distance for airliners on the same path, which allows time for potentially dangerous wake turbulence to dissipate. For planes whose paths do not intersect (in the 3-D environment, not merely 2-D), much, much closer passes can safely occur. The plane you show was at least 1000 feet higher than your own, a standard separation for planes awaiting landing clearance, and not on the same flight path.
Whatever may be in NASA's report (I suspect it's mostly the collisions it refers to are mostly taxiway and tarmac incidents), does not change the fact that the airlines are still the safest way to travel by a large margin. Over the past 20 years, your odds of dying in a commerical airline accident were about 1 in 5 million per flight (multiply by number of flights you take in life for net risk). Your odds of dying on the road are about 1 in 50 (net risk).
Perhaps not but the ensuing panic as smoke is seen in the cabin and the registering of electrical fault may force a landing.
http://www.rense.com/general79/wdx1.htm
... unless the designers have employed some of those high-tech "fuse" thingies. Maybe you'd be better off just using your laptop battery.
Prov 9:8 Do not rebuke mockers or they will hate you; rebuke the wise and they will love you.
There was an article in Air & Space magazine in the last month or so about runway incursions (being in the wrong taxiway, or worse on the wrong active runway, or crossing when you shouldn't. It was a pretty scary article, and it discussed the things they are trying to do to make sure the pilots turn when they should, and do not when they shouldn't. Bottom line, is the FAA has spent a lot of money and time, but hasn't got a good solution yet...
My wife doesn't listen to me either...
yes because airlines have a proven record of perfectly following maintenance and not taking shortcuts not to mention kapton wiring :)
http://www.google.com/search?ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&sourceid=navclient&gfns=1&q=kapton+wiring+problems
http://www.rense.com/general79/wdx1.htm
Aren't they the people that typically investigate aviation accidents and make reports?
I don't think NADA should have anything to do with this.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
and thats just with planes. what with all those ufos out there, it's surprising as many planes land as they do.
To live without killing is a thought which could electrify the world, if men were capable of staying awake long enough.
Hyperbole aside, number of passenger miles http://www.bts.gov/publications/white_house_economic_statistics_briefing_room/october_2005/html/air_revenue_passenger_miles.html has nearly doubled since 1992, yet number of fatalities per year has gone down RADICALLY (http://www.ntsb.gov/aviation/Paxfatal.htm - wow was '85 a bad year).
I dunno, seems like it's getting safer to me.
-Styopa
add this to the fact that air controllers still use equipment that employs vaccuum tubes, which have an opportunity to break down thousands of time per second, we've got a possible crisis on our hands. I'd to think what would happen if all air traffic control was lost at JFK or any other international airport.
To live without killing is a thought which could electrify the world, if men were capable of staying awake long enough.
Just imagine how fast the 32-bit ID pointer would roll over on a database for close calls between cars.... Somehow I suspect that even with the number of close calls in the air and on the runway, the planes are safer per capita than cars.
Riding in a motor vehicle on city streets is a good deal more dangerous. For many Americans it's substantially the most dangerous thing they're willing to do EVER, and yet they do it many times a day.
Of course, there's *some* risk in _anything_ you do. Playing sports and working out, for instance, are likely to get you injured, but sitting at home all the time will buy you poor health twenty or forty years down the line. There's no such thing as a completely safe activity.
Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
Even this study, which the AP was quick to hit the panic button about, states that your odds of dying on any given airline flight is one in 4.5 million. Your odds of dying in any sort of air travel accident in your liftetime (on average...obviously, odds vary according to how often you fly) are about one in 20,000. You odds of dying in a car are about one in a hundred. Your odds of dying in an airliner hijacked by terrorists are about 1 in 55 million. So, obviously, the government is spending billions to combat terrorism, millions on air safety, and hardly anything on automotive safety.
Does anyone in government ever bother to READ the reports they spend so much time and money writing and classifying?
Here's another interesting approach to air safety:
Helical Flight Logic
Weeks of coding saves hours of planning.
Train accidents with less than 20 fatalities
About 70 or so in the past 5 years, and if you go back one more year, 250 more.....
Now I know these aren't directly comparable since there were more miles flown etc, but there are more flying fatalities than trains in the past 5 years, esp. if you go worldwide.
Monstar L
The FAA, NTSB, ATC, Military and NASA all have their various "official" reporting systems for accidents, runway incursions, near misses, etc. etc. - but the idea behind this survey was to get a little bit more of a "frank" idea of what's going on - if stuff isn't reported - if incedents don't need to be reported - and to check if there are problems in the system.
(As a student-pilot) I firmly believe that pilots, if interviewed anonymously, would be more than willing to offer any information, or bend anyone's ear as to what the problems are and how to make things safer. If people are "on-the-record" doing this - everyone jumps into the "CYA" mentality.
Are you just looking for someone to blame, or do you really want to know the truth??
over Mucho Grande. Let me tell you about it...
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I was born and lived in San Diego until I was 13. I vividly recall what was then the worst commercial airline accident, a mid-air collision between PSA Flight 182 that was coming in for a landing to Lindbergh Field, and a Cessna, in September of 1978.
The Cessna took out the wing of the larger plane, causing it, of course, to burst in flames. 182 crashed in the middle of a residential neighborhood, killing 7 on the ground and creating what is still one of the largest fires in the county.
Not that any crash is good, but ones created by collisions in the middle of residential neighborhoods have to be among the worst. There was video at the time of flaming bodies that fell out of the plane. Local authorities picked up body parts out of backyards and rooftops for several weeks after the crash. It was a gruesome event.
The crash was created by two sets of pilots who failed to maintain good visual contact with each other. The PSA pilots knowingly ignored the other plane and the little plane--piloted by a student pilot if it matters--stopped its visual assessment of the larger commercial plane. The PSA plane was basically directly above the Cessna as it ascended and came into its flight path as the big plane descended. I imagine the student pilot simply didn't lean forward far enough to see the big jet directly above it. He probably thought it was out of his vector but instead made a fatal assumption. Likewise, the PSA pilots didn't look down to keep a good eye on the little plane that was heading their way. There is some evidence to suggest that the PSA pilots, however, didn't have good information from the tower on which plane they should be looking for and where it was.
Lindbergh Field has a reputation for being one of the least desirable airports to land at in the US because of the sharp angle of descent and its close proximity to major urban and residential areas. There's no "easy" approach to land there.
SwissAir flight 111 had this and did several other planes but not as fatal a Swiss Air flight 111. SwissAir flight 111 is a textbook case of the problems of this type of wiring. But as we want more "toys" on the plane the more this problem will grow. Another example of this is the Airbus A380 where the wiring between engineering and production are causing the delays of this airplane from getting out of the door. Yes the A380 is flying with air carriers colors but the interiors where passengers sit are not done because improper wiring specifications.
If you read any newspapers at all it's obvious about bird strikes, near misses and ground incursion.
It got so bad at PVD that they had to install an experimental ground incursion RADAR system.
What kills me are the near misses. GPS is pretty accurate, particularly when you look at the tolerance for air flight. And when you're up that high it's pretty sure you'll catch a few satellites to do comparison. But they don't use that on aircraft yet decent navigation systems are showing up in cars now.
And lets look at the antiquated Air Traffic Control System. That needs improvement.
With regard to the birds, just harden the jets up enough to withstand the strike.
"said Rep. Brad Miller, R-N.C."
Brad Miller is a Democratic congressman, not a Republican as the article indicated. Instead read this as "Democratic Rep. Brad Miller, NC-13."
I'm just going to assume that the author of this article made a small typo instead of questioning whether they have the first clue about congress (the committee chair is a member of the majority party, currently the Democrats). But this article seems pretty far out of the mainstream press if they haven't caught this one yet.
This is news? This is even slightly worrying? Not a day goes by that I don't have a dozen near misses driving to and from work. Idiots who change lanes without looking. Idiots who don't wait until I'm out of the way before they start pulling out to merge in to my traffic lane. Idiot pedestrians who are too stupid to know what a car is, much less that they shouldn't jump in front of them.
A near miss isn't an accident.
(But then, I live in southern California, where every day is Teach A Retard To Drive Day, with bonus points for the short bus.)
This just in, flying through the air at high velocities not completely safe.
Question everything
I fly constantly for business...typically out 30 weeks out of the year on business.
One trip coming back from Europe to Minneapolis/St. Paul (NWA of course on an A320, if I remember correctly), my wife and I were sitting in the front seats with the attendant in front of us (facing us). We had been talking and still were as we were landing. Another Flight Attendant went on the PA, and was starting to announce the landing. We had just touched down and you could hear the brakes and the plane start to slow down...Next thing you know I was fully back in my seat, the attendant in front of us, I swear to you, her hands we almost fully out-reached as if trying to touch me, and he eyes seemed an inch or more out of her head. The pilot had all of a sudden released the brakes, changed the flaps, and FULL throttled the engines. We were back in the air and climbing at what seemed a 90 degree angle. As we went around in a holding pattern again the pilot came on, semi out of breathe, and explained to us that some other pilot was about to lose his job. He had started to cut across our landing path some ways ahead of us, and the pilot had to pull up immediately or we would have collided.
That was one of the flights we will never forget.
As the neocon mantra goes, "if you're not doing anything wrong, what do you have to hide?".
revealing the findings could damage the public's confidence in airlines and affect airline profits.
This is why it is bad: because they are putting the profits of the airlines above the safety of the passengers. If it really wasn't that bad, why would they be hiding it from the public?
The interesting thing is that if NASA had just quietly released this, no one would have bothered to notice. But the fact that they aren't releasing it suggests that the problem really is worse than the report suggests, and that the powers that be don't want the issue investigated any further.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
I hear about very few collisions being the cause of accidents, usually it's something else. So even if it's "close" sometimes, the sky is a pretty big place, and safety margins are there for a reason. So, what did the statistics say about the cause of crashes?
I hunch the guys on the ground with radar etc have a far better perspective of what is really going on than any "eye witness".
Engineering is the art of compromise.
The book contains a lot of that kind of analysis and is worth reading simply for the insight into incentives (which I found in the first chapter.)
When the axe came to the forest, the trees said, "Look out - the handle was once one of us."
But seriously, thanks for posting. Real information from informed people is nice. I have a couple hours in a Cessna and over 20 in gliders (Grob 103, DG-1000 and 2-33). I felt safer during my first glider solo, towing with a slight crosswind and all, than during any of my driver's ed training.
ATL also does parallel approach. I was on a CRJ-200 with a 747-400 trailing on approach to the other runway...It made some passengers nervous. Come to think of it, IAD might too...
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I've been on well over 350 commercial flights in my life, and never had a single emergency, in-flight failure, diverted landing (aside from weather) or the like.
OTOH, on Friday I was in a conversation with some people on air travel; out of four people (none of whom have any particular connection to air travel), one of them was on a plane that made an emergency landing (at an airport whose terminal was too small to really handle them) because of smoke in the cabin, and another was on a plane about a week before that suffered a mechanical failure on takeoff (hypothesis: brake seized) that almost sent them off the runway, aborted their departure, and got them a new plane.
It's hard to say what exactly the report says, but it is interesting anyway.
I still feel 1,000 times safer in a plane than I do driving on the Massachusetts Turnpike.
Sure, it may be the difference between feeling 500 times safer and 1000 times safer, or 1000 times safer and 2000 times safer, or something like that, but the differences alleged by the article are still interesting.
Big airplanes have the most crazy wiring you could imagine. They build up and test the harness outside of the plane, and then they pull it into place, like your brother-in law did with his Volkswagen bus. Every wire has to be perfect. There are heart-wrenching stories of what happens when they are not. Wiring is a subject that aircraft companies just dread dealing with. You'd think they'd be motivated to get it right; problems are very bad for business. The threat of lawsuits usually doesn't stop them from switching to the right thing, what's different here?
You'd be lucky to get much smoke at all before blowing the fuse on the whole system.
I read the internet for the articles.
None of this is true.. look away...
:-)
I accidentially snuck a computer repair kit onboard 3 planes, back to back.. One from Charleston to charlotte or Atlanta, then from there to Germany, either Frankfurt or Munich, and from there to Hamburg..
No questions asked... I found out I had it on the big flight..
I am talking a 10 inch SPIKE/Phillips attachment to the 4 inch screwdriver....
Feel safe? I did knowing if anyone tried to hijack the plane I could stab them
Just because it works, Doesn't make it right. - JTM
My personal experience in the past year:
* Taken 16 flights
* Experienced zero accidents or near incidents involving aircraft
* Witnessed zero accidents or near incidents involving aircraft
However:
* Witnessed three auto accidents en-route to airport
* Witnessed one auto accident en-route to home from airport
* Taxi driver taking me home from airport narrowly avoided a severe collision
Flying doesn't scare me in the slightest, but I sometimes find myself nervous when I have to fly. Can you guess from the above experiences why? Safety at the airport in my home town is scrutinised very closely and by all appearances seems to be top notch. On the other hand, the city seems to have no qualms about planning several simultaneous construction projects along a single route, replete with inadequate road markings, constantly changing signal configurations and restricted lanes...which don't mix well at all with drivers who ignore the reduced speed limits and feel that they absolutely must not leave one or more car-length of space between themselves and the vehicle they are following, lest someone has the gall to cut in front of them.
The article of discussion here stated that there is one in-flight fatality per MILLIONS of departures--I bet more people die golfing than flying and certainly driving is several orders of magnitude more risky. Roads are WAY more crowded than runways and airspace, aircraft are in MUCH better condition and far more reliable than automobiles and pilots are FAR more skilled and competent than even some of the better drivers on the road.
It seems to me that even if NASA's interviews suggest incidents are under-reported by half that overall air safety is quite good and certainly not worth the alarmist tones by those involved. If there is ANYTHING about air travel we should be concerned about, beyond the hazardous road trip to the airport (if it isn't the construction-infested road to the airport at home it is the dangerously confusing interchanges and signage at other large airports), it is the screwed up state of security at airports. Recent surveys have shown that security gate personnel have been extremely good at confiscating grandma's knitting needles, threatening toiletries and risky bottles of Evian, but when it comes to REAL security they have been almost criminally neglectful.
For example, in LAX testers placed very obvious-looking bomb components into checked luggage (batteries with wires and circuitry attached, realistic-appearing explosives, etc) and 3 out of 4 times it cleared security. In the recent past air cargo security has been circumvented up to 90 percent of the time. At the airport I take off from regularly a mentally disturbed person scaled the perimiter fence, wandered onto the runways and tried to flag down a commercial jumbo jet preparing for takeoff. In Montreal a reporter crawled under a similar fence, got into an unlocked maintenance truck and started it up. Then he put on a smock and waled right into the CARA kitchen preparing food for the next departing flight posing as an inspector. Nobody questioned his presence, asked for ID or anything.
Trust me, if you were to be injured or killed during a flight--extremely unlikely as it is, you probably stand a greater chance of it being because some nutjob jihadist checked a bomb, or infiltrated airport security and poisoned the in-flight food, than because of mechanical failure or runway incursions or mid-air collisions or birds meeting their maker inside a jet engine.
Close calls only count in horseshoes and hand grenades.
If there was no collision or accident, then it doesn't really matter as far as the statistics go, does it?
I drive 50-100 miles a day in city traffic for my job. At least 2-3 times a day, I have what I could consider a "close call". Yet I haven't gotten into ANY accident at all in 4 years (and that one was a stupid 'backing into a parking lot post',) and no moving accidents in over 9 years (the one in 1998 wasn't my fault, even.)
So does that mean driving is so inherently unsafe that because of 2-3 "close calls" per day, I should stop driving? No. As long as I am reasonably cautious, I should be able to go another 10 years without a major accident.
Another non-functioning site was "uncertainty.microsoft.com."
The purpose of that site was not known.
A $40M, 3 year study into motor vehicle accidents has revealed a startling statistic.
"People don't seem to realise it, but these incidents happen far more than previously thought. It is now clear, that there is almost a 100% probability of a moving vehicle passing within 3M of another. Furthermore, if the vehicles are travelling in opposite directions, they will do so at a relative speed to one another of up to 120mph."
"...but, the study concluded, the most alarming fact of all to be revealed is that these vehicles are not only missing other vehicles by a few meters, but pedestrians (and children!) too. Clearly, the government needs to take immediate action, and fund another subcomittee to keep us in work^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hprotect these vulnerable children".
If we all want to think that flying in a steel box is as safe as it really seems to be then DON'T give us statistics that tell us otherwise!
Note that railroads pick up a lot of the slack by going citycenter to citycenter, no luggage check-in/pickup, no metal detectors, plus on the whole it's more comfortable - you take your seat and that's it, unlike a plane trip where I spend a lot of time moving from one area to the next.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
NASA just released a press statement from Mike Griffin (NASA Administrator) regarding the pilot survey:
RELEASE: 07-230
Statement by NASA Administrator Mike Griffin on Pilot Survey
WASHINGTON - Since becoming NASA administrator, I have been an advocate for openness and transparency in the pursuit of NASA research and analysis. As a general practice, I believe that NASA research and data should be widely available and subject to review and scrutiny.
I have just been made aware of the issue involving information from a NASA survey of airline pilots regarding safety issues being withheld under the Freedom of Information Act.
I am reviewing this Freedom of Information Act request to determine what, if any, of this information may legally be made public. NASA should focus on how we can provide information to the public -- not on how we can withhold it. Therefore, I am asking NASA's Associate Administrator for Aeronautics Research, Lisa Porter, to look into this situation, including ensuring that all survey data are preserved, and report to me as soon as possible.
http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2007/oct/HQ_07230_Griffin_NOAMS_statement.html
Everyone knows the real secret is near-collisions with UFOs.
Ginga no Rekshiya Mata Each page.
Compare the number of plane trips per year and number of plane deaths with the number of car trips per year and the number of car deaths.
Hold on there a second, Statistics Boy.
First, let's consider my actual risk factors. What if I'm not under 25 (the age group that dies like flies in auto accidents)? Guess what, I'm an old fart, so I'm way (WAY) safer without lifting a finger. What if I travel mostly on interstate highways (much safer than secondary roads, by a huge margin)? Once again, I win without effort. What happens if I don't drive at night (much more hazardous than daytime driving, (a) because nobody can see, and (b) because every 10th driver is drunk)? Another win. What happens if I drive a big-ass car rather than a tiny-ass POS, so if I hit your tiny-ass POS I live and you die? What if I avoid driving in ridiculous weather? What if I maintain my vehicle well, I have antilock brakes/stability control, I have new tires, and I'm driving a relatively new vehicle instead of some junker? And so on. By the time I eliminate all the risk factors that the airlines INCLUDE in their road statistics, their numbers are meaningless. Let's turn the tables, shall we? OK, airlines, if you're going to include teenage hotrod and dead-drunk idiots in your road statistics, I'm gonna include all the private airplanes that are busy dropping out of the sky on a daily basis. Who wins now?
Second, the "safety" of airlines is always touted by considering total miles traveled, not TIME IN THE VEHICLE -- and of course they're counting all miles traveled, on all kinds of roadways, in all kinds of weather, in all kinds of vehicles. Hour for hour, trip for trip, you're WAY SAFER in a car than in an airplane.
And finally, the statistics are presented courtesy of the airline industry, which is highly motivated to make you think that it's perfectly safe to whizz around in some poorly-maintained piece of shit airframe that's been in service for 15 years and only indifferently maintained. Pardon me if I think they're shaving the numbers. They'd be idiots not to.
You said what I meant to say in a much better fashion. Thumbs up.
Ever had a blowout on the highway? Would you call yourself an idiot if a piece of debris you couldn't see caused one and sent you into a crash?
I would.
I've had two tires go out completely - one the tire just exploded, nothing left. I was going about 75MPH at the time and was able to pull over safely. No idea what happened, as there was no visible debris...
The second, again going about 75-80 MPH (on the beltway in Houston) I came over a slight rise and there was a big old 4x4 in the middle of my lane. Well, the part where the tire was going anyway. Tire was gone, nothing else to do but I was still able to pull over and not crash.
Debris are not a good excuse for car crashes if you keep your head about you and don't jerk the steering wheel wildly.
I agree with you about being a passenger which is why I try to avoid it unless I think the driver is competent.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I have a lot of input into the safety of my automobile - in fact more even than the car maker in that the choice to run bad tires can outweigh just about any safety feature the car maker can put in place. The governmetn has done what it can there, even going too far in mandating questionable things like airbags. Are you saying the US should uparmor cars?
I can't control airplane quality of the ability of someone with a grudge and a powerful candlestick however, so I welcome government input and funds to make that all a little safer if possible. Personally I find current risks in air travel more than acceptable so I am happy with the job being done in that regard.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
"does not change the fact that the airlines are still the safest way to travel by a large margin"
I suspect you're correct, but I have two thoughts on the matter.
First, as we get more planes into the same space over airports and across the skies, out systems and rules need to become better to maintain the same safety standards we have today. To put it more succinctly, if we don't improve, we'll have worse safety.
Second, much of the work of the government related to air travel is a lot of emphasis on apparent safety rather than actual safety. X-Raying shoes, for example. That doesn't materially add to anybody's safety, but it makes people feel like something is being done to make them safer. If people feel risks are not being accounted for, they'll be less likely to fly.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
I'm not saying you're wrong, but I'd encourage to look at hard numbers rather than pulling guesses out of your ass. Take a look here.
What do I see right away? Well your belief that secondary roads are much safer than highways doesn't seem entirely right - for 2005 I see 44.5k deaths on major roads vs 56.5k deaths on smaller roads. A difference sure, but not all that massive.
The split by vehicle type is also rather interesting, deaths in 4/5 door hatchbacks (the "tiny-ass POS" that I happen to drive) amount to a massive 292, vs almost 28 thousand for your "safe" big-ass car, and no - that difference cannot be explained away by total numbers of vehicles on the road. Small cars are more stable, more agile, and often just better designed with regards to safety. At least that's my belief, and I've yet to see stats to counter that.
---- Den ene knappen er powerknapp, den andre er Bender voice knapp "Bite My Shiny Metal Ass"
It's called a 'go-around' and happens thousands of times a day at airports across the globe. It is no cause for concern, simply a reflection of the imperfect timing of 'scheduled' flights.
In every case, simple procedure is followed; at controlled fields, the ATC will usually give the command to go around but the pilot has the discretion to do so if he thinks there could be a conflict (or even if he just doesn't feel like landing that approach). At major fields, the local procedures are followed or at other fields, full power is applied, a climb is established and a turn is made to the 'dead-side' (opposite side to the circuit side).
The only time I've ever seen a remotely 'tense' go-around was a video of a junior controller at London Heathrow with a slow-to-clear Airbus on the runway and a Concorde beating down short-final. Knowing the enormous fuel cost of a Concorde go-around, the controller tried to delay down to safe minimums but the Concorde pilot made the decision for him (probably out of courtesy) and initiated the go-around with a curt radio call "Speedbird One is going around" and moving into 'wet' (afterburner) power for the climb to make sure the Airbus pilot knew his place
Ripping an new rectum in the fabric of spacetime.
What happens if I drive a big-ass car rather than a tiny-ass POS, so if I hit your tiny-ass POS I live and you die?
Right, so the solution to make roads safer is that we need to make sure everyone has a bigger than average car, right? Also, no matter how big your car is, if you strike a large enough concrete object or tree, you still die. Is your car also safe against people who run over red lights and hit you on the side?
Second, the "safety" of airlines is always touted by considering total miles traveled, not TIME IN THE VEHICLE
When you want to go from point A to point B, and you consider whether to do it by car of by plane, it's the *distance* that's constant, not the time.
Let's turn the tables, shall we? OK, airlines, if you're going to include teenage hotrod and dead-drunk idiots in your road statistics, I'm gonna include all the private airplanes that are busy dropping out of the sky on a daily basis. Who wins now?
Airplanes still win -- by a large amount.
About statistics, they should include everything, both for planes and for cars. "But what about the statistics of people who live on my street have my name and drive the same car as I do?" This is not statistics, this is anecdote.
Opus: the Swiss army knife of audio codec
Maybe it's been a long day for me, but I don't see those numbers you're quoting in the link provided. That said, my interpretation of the poster's statement that we're safer on highways than on secondary roads, is the amount of traffic they accomodate over a specific period of time, the speeds involved, the number of stops along any given stretch of secondary road, etc.. I'm sure the interstate sees way more cars per any given time period than a smaller two lane highway, with a four lane highway being somewhere in between the two (at least in my best estimation and more than a couple of hours driving around the US). Some places use and cross highways as secondary roads. When an accident occurs at one of these intersections (a truck driver blowing a stoplight and nailing a car crossing the highway comes to mind) which roadway gets the points?
What would be interesting to drill down into, is how many of the interstate accidents are by factors other than driver error (deer, weather, construction) causing a fatal accident on an interstate vs. secondary roads. Another interesting way to compare the data would be to break it down to similar lengths of road with similar conditions et al. over a given time/traffic amount.
Also, as a final thought, do any of these statistics take into account a driver's familiarity with the roads compared to people who aren't familiar with the roads? For instance if someone from Kansas comes to my small Indiana town are he and I held to the same amount of risk factor even though I know about subtleties in the roads and routes through town that this person (for the sake of argument) wouldn't?
YMMV
Silliness aside, it is in fact called a Near Mid-Air Collision when two aircraft pass within 500 feet of each other. I have seen many, many, many aircraft pass directly overhead or below that were 1,000 feet from me. It's a little uncomfortable the first few times, but you eventually get accustomed to it. Not once was it a surprise to myself or the other aircraft's pilot.
"Now, "commercial welfare" is just as valid as "national security"."
How long has it been since "National Security" was more important than commercial interest? I didn't get the memo.
The cost of that cleanup, of course, will be borne by taxpayers, not industry.
I think monorails have a pretty good record as far as collisions go. If it is as noisy as the ones in Seattle, they're welcome to route it over my yard, as long as the station is less than a ten-minute walk. "Light rail" seems to benefit big construction contractors more than anybody else. And let's get rid of the damn buses, okay?
The cost of that cleanup, of course, will be borne by taxpayers, not industry.
Amtrack sucks so I believe they get more respect than they deserve, btw.
The cost of that cleanup, of course, will be borne by taxpayers, not industry.
In fact pressure based altimeter are not that much accurate, they can by slightly off due to meteorological variation and other. The important detail is that they are off by the same amount (because the pressure altimeters of anyone revelant is used in the same atmosphere).
/. could also point out to the Accuracy vs. Precision wikipedia entry).
(And some terminology nazi
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Maybe it's been a long day for me, but I don't see those numbers you're quoting in the link provided.
:)
Hit the query button - you can create your own report with whatever criteria they have in the DB. It's pretty flexible.
I'm sure the interstate sees way more cars per any given time period than a smaller two lane highway,
Indeed, but there are also probably far more miles of two lane roads than interstates, so the real data point would be deaths per passenger mile by road type, rather than just total deaths. That would require data for how much of the different types of roads exist and how they're used, which I didn't google for.
Also, as a final thought, do any of these statistics take into account a driver's familiarity with the roads compared to people who aren't familiar with the roads? For instance if someone from Kansas comes to my small Indiana town are he and I held to the same amount of risk factor even though I know about subtleties in the roads and routes through town that this person (for the sake of argument) wouldn't?
Would you be held accountable for the fact that you're (hypothetically) paying no attention to the road and playing with your radio because you drive the same route every day and know it like the back of your hand, whereas I'm fully alert and watching everything because it's unfamiliar to me? I would be interested in statistics but it would be my guess that familiarity breeds laziness, not good driving
---- Den ene knappen er powerknapp, den andre er Bender voice knapp "Bite My Shiny Metal Ass"
Ignoring all of the obvious points made by previous posters, you're looking at the statistics wrong. Odds are if you're in an airplane, it's being operated by a professional pilot. Odds are, if you in a car, not only is it not likely to be operated by a professional driver, but you're sharing the road with mostly non-professional drivers. Buses, driven by professionals, are about half as safe as airliners, but still 10-20 times safer than cars. Sure, there are tons of amateur pilots flying around their own planes, but it's so extremely unlikely that you or I will end up on one of those planes that they don't belong in the statistics. You might as well add cargo planes, military flights, and airshows also.
Hell, forget the statistics and just look at the actual numbers. This year there were no jetliner fatalities in the US. Last year there were 49 in the Comair crash. In 2005 the only jet crash fatality was a child in a car that was hit by a plane sliding off its runway. Prior to that the latest jet fatalities were in 2001. That's right. Of the trillions of passenger miles flown in those 5 years, the only fatality was actually in an automobile. Do you still think you're safer in a car?
dom
This is completely silly.
We know pretty accurately how dangerous flying is, on account of having a fairly good record of how many million people fly how many thousand miles a year, and knowing how many end up dead or injuried as a result.
If *almost* crashes where significantly up, you'd expect *actual* crashes to be similarily up. There's more than enough planes in the air that the law of average work just fine.
Statistically, what matters is the actual number of dead or injured; those are being reported accurately.
My first thought on the story is "Why is NASA doing this sort of study?". Shouldn't this be the responsibility of the NTSB and/or FAA?
Time to get rid of some government waste and redundancy.
I flew VFR KSWF D-> KLOM the other night, which took me directly over SAX, and although I was quite amazed with how many jets there were on appr to NYC, negotiating the traffic was no big deal.
The responsibility to fly safely lies with the pilots, not ATC, and especially not the government bureaucracy.
One thing I wondered about from the NASA report - they said that something occurred twice as often in their study as it did in the FAA report. Could that be because NASA interviewed pilots while the FAA counted planes or incidents? In the commercial world, there are two pilots per plane, which would eliminate the discrepancy.
Just a thought...
Brian
Private pilot here. I was taking off in a Cessna 150 behind a 777 out of Paine Field in Everett. I waited the standard delay, plus an extra minute offered by the tower, before taxiing out for take off. Wakes last a long time, and taking off about 100' above the runway I hit the remaining wake. It flipped me past wings vertical one direction, then immediately flipped me over 180 degrees the other direction, then yanked me back to level. I had the controls to the opposite stops fighting the rolls and it didn't make the slightest difference.
The rating on the Cessna at that speed wouldn't break the wings, they would only stall out, but it's still just as bad when on climb out with no recovery room.
I kept on after that in normal climb out, scared but otherwise ok.
----- And all that the Lorax left here in this mess was a small pile of rocks, with one word...UNLESS.
My sister was 'tarded. She's a pilot now.
Its easily fixed by federal funding a program to put bullet trains at heavily travelled air routes. It doesn't even need to be comprehensive, like our national highways. More passenger rail transportation, less domestic flights needed.
There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM and AT&T and DuPont, Dow, General Electric, and Exxon
I don't see how the lane-change near-collision is at all avoidable, however. Yes, you should absolutely check your blind spot before starting a lane change, but what if there are three lanes, and you're in the right lane, and someone else is in the left lane, and you both attempt to change to the middle lane at the same time? Unless you have some sort of ESP to help you predict the other driver's moves, this is just something you have to watch for as you attempt your lane change, and be ready to abort if necessary.
I looked at the wiki pages, and it looked like there were a lot more train accidents (total number) than airline, with trains going 30+ per year. One of the commercial plane incidents included a pair of helicopters covering a highway chase - not exactly planes.
Actually, I looked at 2007/2006/2005 for North America in that list, and I came up with a total of 6 incidents, 5 of which ended with no fatalities or injuries of the plane occupants (one person on the ground died), and one which killed 20 people - and that was on a 1947 Grumman Mallard.
Trains had the same number of incidents in the US - 6, with fatalities in nearly every incident, though all of them to bystanders.
It is true that when planes really do crash, they tend to kill more people, but they tend to crash exceedingly infrequently in North America. Most of the "incidents" are near misses or landing goofs which occur at commercial fields.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
The problem with only counting "train" accidents is that this ignores the collateral damage at grade crossings. The Federal Railroad Administration (http://safetydata.fra.dot.gov/OfficeofSafety/Default.asp?page=graphs.asp) maintains data; there's this year's chart: http://safetydata.fra.dot.gov/OfficeofSafety/Output.asp?file=2007/cht03.gif. The numbers are an order of magnitude higher.