Time to reset the counter

[trinityvixen]

This morning I was reading a blog post on the NYT website that mentioned how USA Today had, only recently, acknowledged that there hadn't been any airline-related fatalities or jet plane crashes in US airspace since 2001. That made it seven years without an incident, the longest streak on record.

Not sure if the one today counts or not, since it seems (from what I've read and what I hope) that everyone was rescued, but I found myself wondering if the FAA has a board with "Number of Days Without Incident" somewhere and if they are, in fact, setting it back to zero after this afternoon.

Comments

[shell524.livejournal.com]

If that was indeed mentioned in USA Today, why did they forget about Comair 191 in Kentucky in 2006?

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

No idea. Perhaps because it never got off the ground? I mean, if I were the FAA, I'd set this bar pretty high in terms of what counts as a "crash." Seeing as seven years without incident, even despite this one, is their "record," clearly that high bar still got cleared an awful lot in the hundred-odd years we've had the ability to fly.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

If that was indeed mentioned in USA Today

Also, what? I mean, it was. That's why I mentioned it. A blog I was reading only that day happened to mention it. And all the NYT reporting has reported the same--that the last crash of a commercial plane after take-off was the one that crashed over Queens in November 2001.

[shell524.livejournal.com]

It's not supposed to be like "I doubt USA Today said that," just "If that's what they said, why were the obviously airline-related fatalities of the people on Comair 191 left out of the numbers"?

I mean, it's an airline incident, people died. So I'm confused as to why it's not included and the FAA and news agencies are pointing to 2001 and saying 7 years without fatalities or crashes.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

Like I said, I think they set the bar pretty high so that they look better. And the fact that we still clear that makes me really nervous.

[shell524.livejournal.com]

Actually, I think if you define it solely as large jet crashes, then 9/11 was the last set of "jet" airline crashes in the US. Everything since then has been small regional jets or propjets, and the one incident that involved a 737 that I can think of off the top of my head wasn't fatal (Continental at Denver.)

As far as accident rates go, you're still safer flying than on the road.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

Oh, I'm not scared of traveling on planes at all, nor am I more scared by this. What concerns me is that they define up the definition of plane crashes purposefully to exclude incidents like the one you mentioned. I intensely dislike such dissembling.

[shell524.livejournal.com]

Ah, true. The NTSB, however, includes in their main statistic ALL incidents, then has a separate number for fatalities. For that matter, the statement from the NYT and USA Today may just be their reporters/bloggers saying that "statistic." Today's USA Today story on their main page only says TWO years without incident.

What gets me are the irrational people commenting on articles with junk like "Birds can bring down a plane? I'm never flying again" and "We were statistically due for another crash". The first of which has always been true, birds and jet engines are a known issue, thus why airports go to extreme measures to keep birds away, and the second of which is blatantly untrue, actually statistically speaking.