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Why you've never been in a plane crash

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Re: Why you've never been in a plane crash

#251

Post by histriosum »

Sohcahtoa82 wrote: post #205
mazugrin2 wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

United Airlines used to have this back in the days where your seat had an audio jack and a few channels of music to listen to. Channel 9 was the audio from the cockpit. Nowadays you can listen to ATC from nearly anywhere by visiting https://liveatc.net/

I've listened to liveatc.net, and then took a flight in an Extra 330LS stunt plane and got to listen to ATC from an actual headset... ...and I can't understand hardly a word they say. Even having a slight idea of the phraseology from countless hours in MSFS and watching VATSIM streams on Twitch, when it comes to the real thing, they talk so fast and there's so much static that it blows my mind that anybody can unders…

Commercial rated pilot here. It's definitely a bit of a learned skill, but it doesn't honestly take that long to learn, and it works better than any other alternative might. The most important thing is for everyone in the system to be willing to speak up if they don't clearly understand what's been said to them. "Say again slower" is a perfectly acceptable response, and is a required one of a pilot or controller who did not understand what was said.

Controller cadence is a bit geographical - the busier the airspace the faster the tempo, and the more important it is to speak up.

AM simplex radio works amazingly well overall for this purpose, and none of the potential technology that could replace it would be as safe or reliable..

Re: Why you've never been in a plane crash

#252

Post by nuancebydefault »

ylhert wrote: post #209
nayuki wrote: post #199

Great article. I agree a lot with the safety culture in commercial aviation and the commitment to investigate and fix root causes. Now can we please apply the same standards to car crashes? The same human errors and bad infrastructure keep getting repeated over and over again. And the problems are getting worse, with SUVs and distracted driving on the rise. See https://www.reddit.com/r/fuckcars/ for a community that…

The cognitive dissonance people have around this issue is astonishing. We are willing to ground the 737MAX fleet when a few people get a (surely terrifying) open air flying experience; but 44,000 people are killed on the road in the US _every_ year (and rising!) and very few people seem to care. In most age cohorts, death by car is the largest killer. In the US you have a 1 in 107 chance of dying in a car crash in yo…

1 death by car crash in 107 in a lifetime, meaning 106 other ways of dying in a lifetime. Everything is relative.

Re: Why you've never been in a plane crash

#253

Post by Mawr »

sgjohnson wrote: post #100
mrjin wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would assume the pilots of those still had control to some extent?

Total loss of control basically never happens. I’ve been reading and watching a lot of videos on aircraft accidents and near misses, and I haven’t seen a single one where there truly was a total loss of all controls over the aircraft. Even in the case of Japan Airlines Flight 123 ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan_Air_Lines_Flight_123 ) the pilots still had some degree of control over the plane after its tail wa…

Similar accidents:

- Alaska Airlines Flight 261 - https://youtu.be/gAYzBJxOeLw?t=2106

- Lauda Air Flight 004: https://youtu.be/WsYU7tjOvm0?t=1196

Re: Why you've never been in a plane crash

#254

Post by caskstrength »

izacus wrote: post #33
josephg wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With the number of data breaches we see cropping up, I wonder if a similar law could be written to hold companies liable for the safe handling of personal data.

TBH having software engineer output in general be liable to some minimum safety, correctness and quality standard would be a god send for the world. But of course the developers will revolt against that.

> But of course the developers will revolt against that.

Why would developers revolt? OTOH users would definitely be unhappy when every little app for their iPhone suddenly costs as much as an airplane ticket.

Re: Why you've never been in a plane crash

#255

Post by r_klancer »

psunavy03 wrote: post #201
r_klancer wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Strong Towns is attempting to change that with the "Crash Analysis Studio": https://www.strongtowns.org/crash-studio I can think of many reasons it's difficult, though: * The fact that accident investigations are designed to figure out which driver was at fault, for insurance purposes * The fact that road designers are shielded from liability (good, right?), but only if they can show they followed the standard design…

> I've heard that to be a pilot you really have to be comfortable with doing what you're told, all day long. Quite the opposite. The Pilot in Command is ultimately the person who is legally responsible for the safe operation of the aircraft. While you are following ATC instructions the majority of the time you are in contact with them, you are also culpable if you blindly allow them to put you in danger. If ATC tells…

Ah, I worded that badly. Ultimately the pilot is the decider as you say. I was getting at the idea that (so I am told) the day to day experience of piloting is very much about working within a regimented system.

Re: Why you've never been in a plane crash

#256

Post by foofie »

beAbU wrote: post #243
foofie wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> An engineer "signing off" on something actually means something, with actual stakes. It's all about the social impact of a mistake. The reason "engineers" sign off stuff is not because they are engineers. It's because society frowns upon people dying due to a faulty building, wants to see those responsible for the disaster punished and not be behind another project again. Society's response to ensuring incompetent…

> ... does not motivate a strong response from society ... Is it not time things change? How many lives have been destroyed by shoddy software? UK post office scandal? Therac-25? Leaked personal, intimate or payment data?

> Is it not time things change?

No.

There is absolutely no use case for misuse of any mundane service or desktop app that comes even close to match the impact on society of an apartment building collapsing and killing occupants.

> How many lives have been destroyed by shoddy software?

In relative terms, if you compare any grievance you might have with the sheer volume of services and applications running 24/7 all over the world... Zero dot zero percent.

You can't even make a case against using free software developed by amateur volunteers in production environments.

Re: Why you've never been in a plane crash

#257

Post by bradfa »

SoftTalker wrote: post #173
bradfa wrote: post #96

Why don't we as a society apply similar safety culture to driving cars and trucks as we do to aviation? MANY more people are harmed or killed by automobiles than by aircraft per person-mile traveled. A small improvement in automobile safety could make a large impact on society. Many of the types of improvements implemented by aviation mentioned in this article, when applied to the automotive world, would look like im…

Well we do. That's why automobiles have seatbelts and airbags, rear-view cameras, antilock brakes, traction control, and have to pass crash safety tests.

Sure but we still have tens of thousands of traffic fatalities every year in the USA and the stats are not decreasing in any meaningful way. What we have done is not working to actually reduce automobile deaths.

Re: Why you've never been in a plane crash

#258

Post by Terr_ »

nayuki wrote: post #237
P_I_Staker wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unpopular opinion, but the truth: We have to drive and it's a right. I agree about the infrastructure issues. Still the modern "safe driving" mentality that people want is at odds with that REALITY. This could change with public transit, however we don't do this. Even the best countries fall short, and most don't get close. It's actively discouraged in the USA. Actually, you could argue that people already have to de…

Mostly agreed, except for: > We have to drive and it's a right. WTF? Driving is by definition a privilege. You're maneuvering a 2-ton murder machine. We got into the current mess because people treat driving as a right - I have to have parking, I have to get there fast, I have to bend everything society to fit my car. And when someone gets caught for a DUI, judges go lenient because they know that taking away their l…

> Driving is by definition a privilege. You're maneuvering a 2-ton murder machine.

I think this point needs sharpening a bit by making the implicit explicit: "Driving" per se isn't the issue, it's where one does it and who else they may endanger when doing it badly or recklessly. People can maneuver 2-ton murder machines alone on their personal closed track as much as they want.

Re: Why you've never been in a plane crash

#259

Post by justnotworthit »

nayuki wrote: post #199

Great article. I agree a lot with the safety culture in commercial aviation and the commitment to investigate and fix root causes. Now can we please apply the same standards to car crashes? The same human errors and bad infrastructure keep getting repeated over and over again. And the problems are getting worse, with SUVs and distracted driving on the rise. See https://www.reddit.com/r/fuckcars/ for a community that…

After notjustbikes got big, he dropped any humility and started preaching to the choir, calling people who didn't agree with him racist idiots. I complained in the comments that I used to be able to recommend his videos sight-unseen to the people who needed to be convinced. He replied and insulted me as someone who just found his channel and couldn't take the truth.

Re: Why you've never been in a plane crash

#260

Post by hanche »

leesec wrote: post #196
leetrout wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry for your loss. I hope something was learned by others so it will not happen again.

Thanks, unfortunately it was primarily pilot error so I doubt it. The pilot also passed

Pilot errors also have underlying causes. Was the pilot properly trained for the particular situation that arose? How is the safety culture of the airline? Did some aspect of the airplane design make that mistake more likely, or hinder the possibility of recovery? Was the pilot tired or not well and should not be flying in the first place? There’s a thousand questions like that which can and should be asked in a proper investigation. Hopefully, they were.

(I have been binge reading my way through Admiral Cloudberg’s blog on medium lately. Perhaps not to be recommended for you, as reading about a hundred fatal plane crashes may be too emotionally painful.)

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