Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

UPS plane crashes near Louisville airport

avherald.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

231–240 of 469 posts

Re: UPS plane crashes near Louisville airport

#231

Post by IAmBroom »

watwut wrote: post #223
dmd wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given an hour spent flying in a commercial US-flagged airliner or an hour spent in your living room, and you're (far) more likely to get hurt or die in your living room.

Is that actual statistic?

rogerrogerr, I suspect that stat involves all deaths, not just to passengers.

The vast majority of deaths by train involve "trespassers", which is code for "dimwits who bypassed crossing gates and got smashed by the train that couldn't stop". Usually not even the train drivers are injured, much less the passengers.

But airplanes are very safe - perhaps mostly because it's hard for idiots to drive in front of them.

Re: UPS plane crashes near Louisville airport

#233

Post by rob74 »

dmd wrote: post #219
coddingtonbear wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Forgive me, but by what possible metric: miles traveled in it?

Given an hour spent flying in a commercial US-flagged airliner or an hour spent in your living room, and you're (far) more likely to get hurt or die in your living room.

[citation needed]

All things being equal, I would assume that you are safer in an environment that's stationary and reasonably sturdy, rather than in an aluminum tube at 40,000 ft above ground? Ok, as they say, all things are rarely equal, of course people are more likely to die of old age or of various diseases at home rather than while traveling (simply because old and terminally ill people probably don't travel that much), but I would say that skews the statistics against the living room and should be discounted. And at home you can engage in various activities that you probably won't do while on an airplane (electrical repairs, cooking...), but if you get hurt while doing that, that's also not a fault of the living room per se...

Re: UPS plane crashes near Louisville airport

#234

Post by rogerrogerr »

flobosg wrote: post #220
coddingtonbear wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Forgive me, but by what possible metric: miles traveled in it?

> by what possible metric Micromorts, maybe? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micromort

The relevant bits here - deaths from all causes in the US are 22 micromorts per day. Lower in the article, airline travel is listed as 1 micromort per 1000 miles travelled.

Background risk of death from non-natural causes are listed as 1.6 per day; many of those non-natural causes do not exist in an airplane cabin (e.g. you probably aren't going to be murdered because no one has anything more effective than a plastic spork, you probably aren't going to kill yourself, you probably won't be hit by a car). So it seems reasonable to say that being inside an airliner cabin is safer than being outside of one.

Also, this is probably confounded by many super-old or super-sick people not choosing to fly - if you are in an airliner, you are probably healthier than the average person.

Re: UPS plane crashes near Louisville airport

#235

Post by beerandt »

bombcar wrote: post #131
HPsquared wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wider effects like damage to the wing or changes to aerodynamics. Edit: and damage to other engines, possibly engine #2 in the tail ingesting debris in this instance.

That's the biggest, the weight gone entirely unbalances the plane; if you knew exactly what happened you MIGHT be able to keep it level (and it seems they did for a bit) but eventually airspeed drops, it tips, and cartwheels (which is apparently what it did from the videos).

Deadweight or no-weight engine is a relatively negligible problem in terms of the weight-balance envelope.

Cut fuel & hydraulic lines near that engine (that affect the other engines/ apus) (or less likely structural or aerodynamic problems) is what's going to shift this from "engine failure" recoverable problem to a global nonrecoverable one.

Re: UPS plane crashes near Louisville airport

#237

Post by ExoticPearTree »

lazide wrote: post #174
ExoticPearTree wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They won't have to rely on cabin crew description of what they see over the wings or have to send one of the pilots to take a look (see UA1175).

Sure, but in this situation there is zero time for any of that.

There are countless situations where it can be helpful. You don’t have to focus on a particular one where this would not be of any use.

Re: UPS plane crashes near Louisville airport

#238

Post by fullstop »

amelius wrote: post #196
fullstop wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was a young girl who survived the crash of Asiana flight 214, but was run over by a firetruck because she was covered in extinguisher foam.

=> Don't drive through the foam.

Yes, we can have the automated extinguishers leave a clear path. :-)

Re: UPS plane crashes near Louisville airport

#239

Post by dmd »

rob74 wrote: post #233
dmd wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given an hour spent flying in a commercial US-flagged airliner or an hour spent in your living room, and you're (far) more likely to get hurt or die in your living room.

[citation needed] All things being equal, I would assume that you are safer in an environment that's stationary and reasonably sturdy, rather than in an aluminum tube at 40,000 ft above ground? Ok, as they say, all things are rarely equal, of course people are more likely to die of old age or of various diseases at home rather than while traveling (simply because old and terminally ill people probably don't travel th…

That's just it though. You're safer strapped into a seat, doing nothing, than you are doing whatever it is you do at home.

Would you be safer in your living room doing nothing, strapped to a seat, never doing anything remotely hazardous (like walking around), vs the same in a tube in the sky? Yes, of course. But that's not what people actually DO in their living rooms!

Re: UPS plane crashes near Louisville airport

#240

Post by ExoticPearTree »

krisoft wrote: post #161
ExoticPearTree wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They won't have to rely on cabin crew description of what they see over the wings or have to send one of the pilots to take a look (see UA1175).

Okay. So you mean in general it would help in some cases. Not that in this case it would have helped. > see UA1175 I'm familiar with the case you are mentioning. I'm also aware that they sent a jump seater to look at the engine. But did seeing the engine provide them with any actionable information? Did they fly the airplane differently than if they would have just seen the indications available in the cockpit?

Yes, the cameras would not have helped here, but it dorsn’t mean they are useless in general.

Stupid car analogy: airbags help in most cases, but not all. Are they useless?

Regarding UA1175, they had someone extra, but not all flights happen to have someone extra in the cockpit.

Post reply on HN