Person dies in Southwest Plane after engine breakdown - Trump to blame!

[bilby]

The cab ride to the airport is several orders of magnitude more dangerous than the flight.

Such things are mentioned often but they are not true. Chances of dying while driving are actually smaller than while flying. It's when you look at chances of dying per miles traveled, cars become more dangerous. So unless your cab drive was 1000 miles or something you are wrong.

But it IS true. It probably wasn't true back a few decades ago, when people first started saying it; But it's certainly true today.

In the US, automobile fatalities are about 92 per billion person trips, (with a mean trip distance of about 14.6 miles) [source]. Commercial air fatalities, averaged over ten years and including the fatality that is the topic of this thread (prior to which the rate was ZERO) are about 0.1 per billion person trips, based on an approximate one billion person trips per annum [source]. So a car trip in the USA (regardless of distance) is about three orders of magnitude more likely to see a fatality than a plane trip in the USA.

Unless you think that cab drivers are considerably safer than the average US automobile driver.

 

[barbos]

Commercial air fatalities, averaged over ten years and including the fatality that is the topic of this thread (prior to which the rate was ZERO) are about 0.1 per billion person trips, based on an approximate one billion person trips per annum

So 1 person in 10 years? Assuming it's factually correct for now, you do realize that one crash will screw this statistics for the next 2000 years?
So, no, it's not true. Standard number is 1 fatality per 10 million trips it is comparable to car trips. Now, this could drastically change with robot driving when car deaths could became essentially zero. Planes on the other hand have very much less room for improvement.

 

[bilby]

Commercial air fatalities, averaged over ten years and including the fatality that is the topic of this thread (prior to which the rate was ZERO) are about 0.1 per billion person trips, based on an approximate one billion person trips per annum

So 1 person in 10 years? Assuming it's factually correct for now, you do realize that one crash will screw this statistics for the next 2000 years?

No, I don't - and it isn't true, as this incident demonstrates. Indeed, a crash tomorrow that killed 200 people, would still leave cars more danerous than planes per passenger trip averaged over the last decade.

So, no, it's not true. Standard number is 1 fatality per 10 million trips

[citation needed]

it is comparable to car trips.

[citation needed]

Now, this could drastically change with robot driving when car deaths could became essentially zero. Planes on the other hand have very much less room for improvement.

I am not talking about some point in the distant past, or in remote half-arsed countries like Russia where they have much higher aviation fatality rates such as the 1 per ten million trips you pulled out of your backside. That rate would imply 100 deaths per annum in the USA - where do you imagine that the men in black are hiding all the corpses?

I am also not talking about some fictional future world of super-safe self-driving cars.

I am talking about the USA as it is today. And the fact is that there has been one commercial aviation fatality in a decade, which equals 0.1 per billion person trips. About three orders of magnitude fewer than for automobiles, with 92 fatalities in the USA per billion person trips.

So no, let's not 'assume that it's factually correct for now'; Let's man up and admit that according to the facts, I am simply right, and you are, quite simply, wrong.

 

[barbos]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colgan_Air_Flight_3407
it was in 2009, less than 10 years ago, hence 0.1 per billion is at least 50 times off.

as for 1 per 10 millions citation here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aviation_safety#Statistics
this is British stats for 1990-2000.
Also, while US and other civilized and especially english speaking ones have good air safety statistics the rest of the world does not.

here is a good statistics for US:
https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/data/Pages/paxfatal.aspx

 

[bilby]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colgan_Air_Flight_3407
it was in 2009, less than 10 years ago, hence 0.1 per billion is at least 50 times off.

But still leaves me right, and you wrong, wrt to the claim about the relative risk of a flight vs a cab ride to the airport.

By the way, that was a quick 2000 years

as for 1 per 10 millions citation here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aviation_safety#Statistics
this is British stats for 1990-2000.

Which is a totally irrelevant time period and location. Do you seriously think that commercial aviation hasn't gotten any safer in the last 18-28 years?

 

[barbos]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colgan_Air_Flight_3407
it was in 2009, less than 10 years ago, hence 0.1 per billion is at least 50 times off.

But still leaves me right, and you wrong, wrt to the claim about the relative risk of a flight vs a cab ride to the airport.

You are still 50 times off.

By the way, that was a quick 2000 years

as for 1 per 10 millions citation here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aviation_safety#Statistics
this is British stats for 1990-2000.

Which is a totally irrelevant time period and location. Do you seriously think that commercial aviation hasn't gotten any safer in the last 18-28 years?

No, I don't think that. I just do't think it has got as much better as you think.
And yes, I do think cars are about much much safer.

 

[bilby]

You are still 50 times off.

By the way, that was a quick 2000 years

as for 1 per 10 millions citation here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aviation_safety#Statistics
this is British stats for 1990-2000.

Which is a totally irrelevant time period and location. Do you seriously think that commercial aviation hasn't gotten any safer in the last 18-28 years?

No, I don't think that. I just do't think it has got as much better as you think.
And yes, I do think cars are about much much safer.

Well the facts disagree with you.

I think I will take their word over yours.

 

[barbos]

You are still 50 times off.

No, I don't think that. I just do't think it has got as much better as you think.
And yes, I do think cars are about much much safer.

Well the facts disagree with you.

I think I will take their word over yours.

Facts disagree with you.

 

[bilby]

You are still 50 times off.

No, I don't think that. I just do't think it has got as much better as you think.
And yes, I do think cars are about much much safer.

Well the facts disagree with you.

I think I will take their word over yours.

Facts disagree with you.

Your claim would be less pathetic had you cited any.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Many more planes accidents lead to deaths than car accidents. It isn’t remotely close.

I think there is a death(s) in 24% of plane accidents. That percentage is much higher than deaths in auto accidents.

 

[barbos]

Many more planes accidents lead to deaths than car accidents. It isn’t remotely close.

Depends what you call an accident. plane crash is more likely to cause deaths than a car crash.
With cars, if you are a good driver (don't use phone, etc) then your chances of dying are drastically lower. In case of planes you have no control.

 

[barbos]

Facts disagree with you.

Your claim would be less pathetic had you cited any.

I cited british statistics for 1990-2000. I doubt australian is better.

 

[Malintent]

coroner's report is out on the woman that was impacted and blown partially out of the window. She had MASSIVE blunt trauma to her head, neck, and upper torso from the engine debris. She was likely fatally injured (or instantly killed) prior to being partially expelled from the aircraft.

 

[ZiprHead]

Wife and mother of two kids. I hope her family wasn't with her to witness that.

 

[thebeave]

There was a similar incident in 1973, where a passenger DID get sucked out of the window. The passenger sitting next to him tried to hold on to him and keep him inside, but failed. That passenger who tried to restrain him was the father of a guy in my Boy Scout troop. Made our tiny town in Northern California famous for a few days. He ended up on the Today show, etc. Here's the Wikipedia entry on that incident:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Airlines_Flight_27#cite_note-Mondout-5

One passenger, G.F. Gardner of Beaumont, Texas,[4] was partially forced into the opening made by a failed cabin window, after it too was struck by engine fragments. He was temporarily retained in that position by his seatbelt. "Efforts to pull the passenger back into the airplane by another passenger were unsuccessful, and the occupant of seat 17H was forced entirely through the cabin window."[5]

Its really unfortunate that Richard Nixon was President then, instead of Donald Trump with his excellent leadership skills. That poor man, Mr. Gardner would still be alive and kicking now!

 

[Malintent]

I was thinking about what the effort would be to pull a person in from an airplane window at 35,000 feet.

There are two main forces. Ambient pressure differential from the altitude, and the generated pressure differential from the airspeed.

The ambient pressure differential sounds low, at approximately 8 psi (half an atmosphere of pressure - estimated). With a window size of approximately 9 x 12, that is over 100 square inches... producing a total of 800 lbs of pressure.

To pull a stuck person out of an airplane window, you need to exert a force of at lest 800 lbs.

But it gets worse..

The speed of aircraft creates an additional pressure differential... exactly how the airplane's wings work... the force that is holding hundreds of people up in the air, along with the tons of aircraft weight itself, is all generated via lift produced by air simply moving over the top of the wing.
If you ever were in a fast moving car with the window open, I am sure you have experienced something getting sucked out by the pressure.

on top of that... the "wetted area" of the body itself... the part of the body that is being hit by oncoming wind. That produces additional force against pulling a body in.

It sounds to me that it takes at least half a ton (1000 or so lbs) of force to pull someone in. Even if two very strong people are able to pull that off (no pun intended)... some parts of that body are not going to still be attached.

 

[bilby]

Facts disagree with you.

Your claim would be less pathetic had you cited any.

I cited british statistics for 1990-2000. I doubt australian is better.

Neither is relevant to the USA in the last decade.

 

[bilby]

I was thinking about what the effort would be to pull a person in from an airplane window at 35,000 feet.

There are two main forces. Ambient pressure differential from the altitude, and the generated pressure differential from the airspeed.

The ambient pressure differential sounds low, at approximately 8 psi (half an atmosphere of pressure - estimated). With a window size of approximately 9 x 12, that is over 100 square inches... producing a total of 800 lbs of pressure.

To pull a stuck person out of an airplane window, you need to exert a force of at lest 800 lbs.

But it gets worse..

The speed of aircraft creates an additional pressure differential... exactly how the airplane's wings work... the force that is holding hundreds of people up in the air, along with the tons of aircraft weight itself, is all generated via lift produced by air simply moving over the top of the wing.
If you ever were in a fast moving car with the window open, I am sure you have experienced something getting sucked out by the pressure.

on top of that... the "wetted area" of the body itself... the part of the body that is being hit by oncoming wind. That produces additional force against pulling a body in.

It sounds to me that it takes at least half a ton (1000 or so lbs) of force to pull someone in. Even if two very strong people are able to pull that off (no pun intended)... some parts of that body are not going to still be attached.

The bernoulli effect is NOT how wings work. Aircraft wings work by deflecting air downwards. This causes lift by plain old Newtonian equal and opposite reaction.

It's perfectly possible to build a wing that has a symmetrical cross-section. These work just fine and provide lift for any non-zero angle of attack.

But don't take my word for it - NASA has a detailed explanation online, which is needed because this error is so widely believed. I was taught it at school; I expect you were too.

But then, my physics teacher also claimed that there was no such thing as centrifugal force. https://xkcd.com/123/

 

[Elixir]

The bernoulli effect is NOT how wings work. Aircraft wings work by deflecting air downwards. This causes lift by plain old Newtonian equal and opposite reaction.

It's perfectly possible to build a wing that has a symmetrical cross-section. These work just fine and provide lift for any non-zero angle of attack.

Once again, my 8 year old gut was more correct than my 58 year old 4th grade teacher!
But I'm sure the Bernoulli effect has some ... effect... or they'd be building wings with a cross section that would be easier to construct than the foil shape, right?

 

[bilby]

The bernoulli effect is NOT how wings work. Aircraft wings work by deflecting air downwards. This causes lift by plain old Newtonian equal and opposite reaction.

It's perfectly possible to build a wing that has a symmetrical cross-section. These work just fine and provide lift for any non-zero angle of attack.

Once again, my 8 year old gut was more correct than my 58 year old 4th grade teacher!
But I'm sure the Bernoulli effect has some ... effect... or they'd be building wings with a cross section that would be easier to construct than the foil shape, right?

Cheap light aircraft (and early designs) ARE built that way.

The design of the wing of a modern jet airliner is highly complex and balances construction and operating costs, drag, lift, the requirements to include equipment such as wheel wells and fuel tanks, icing, variable geometry components such as ailerons, flaps, slats, droops and air-brakes... There are dozens of reasons for a particular cross-section. But the fact remains that a wing with a symmetrical cross-section generates lift just as effectively as an airfoil. Angle of attack is all that's needed - if air is forced downward by the wing, then the wing is forced upwards by the air.