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Comment by zipiridu | Hacker News Reader

IIRC takeoff and landing are the most dangerous parts, so I'd be more interested fatalities per trip. An intercontinental plane ride would cover more miles than I drive in a year which makes the per mile stat meaningless to me. I think it would still be in the plane's favor but probably not as significantly. And in that case if you're a safe driver (healthy adult, doesn't drink or do drugs, doesn't speed, etc) it might skew in favor of driving since I'm sure some groups are much higher risk.

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If you are a terrible driver, you can certainly make your individual odds of accident a lot worse than the average case, but I'm not sure being a good driver improves your odds by that much. A lot of the risks are totally out of the driver's control (e.g., other road users, equipment, weather etc..).

Choice of weather conditions is within your control, just don't drive in terrible weather.

Being a good driver does a ton to insulate you from the shenanigans of

Equipment failure is basically a rounding errors but also within the driver's control since "flat tire at speed" is probably lion's share of crashes in that category.

Bad weather is certainly a factor in a lot of General Aviation accidents. VFR into IMC (Visual Flight Rules, ie you fly by looking where you're going; into Instrument Meteorological Conditions, ie you can't see very far due to low cloud or nightfall) kills a bunch of people every year. Some of those killed are IFR rated. In theory they know how to fly a plane when you can't see where you're going, but theory and practice are different.

One thing that's different between GA and driving is that you could stop driving. An hour from home, realising that the road really is too treacherous, you could pull over and walk. Up in the sky they don't have that option at a moment's notice. But one thing that's exactly the same is mission mindset - people fixate on what they intended to do until after it's far too late rather than have contingency plans.

This is a nice summary. VFR into IMC and pilot task saturation/distraction are such killers in the broad GA space. Literally forgetting the fly/operate the plane.

Eh? It's absolutely an option, from a technical weather forecasting perspective, to see that a storm exists, and to abort a particular plane flight before it takes off, or reroute to another airport. This happens all the time in extreme weather conditions (eg winter anywhere it snowstorms). That airlines choose not to more proactively cancel flights in moderately inclement weather is a business decision, not a shortcoming of our weather forecasting abilities. Flights often get delayed by weather at the other end - it's jarring to hear the pilot say the flight you're on is delayed due to heavy rain at your destination, when it's a gorgeous sunny day in your current location, but it happens quite frequently!

The comment you're responding to is talking about general aviation, small propeller planes. Those have a relatively high incident count for flying into bad weather. When the pilot is only trained to fly visually (VFR) and enters low visibility or clouds they're very likely to crash.

This isn't a problem in airline flights. There are very specific rules about when you can and cannot depart and when an alternate airport and fuel for it is required. No airline takes off without satisfying all the rules and almost no airline cancels a flight for weather while the rules say it could go.

> small propeller planes

General Aviation is a category that covers a circumstance of flying rather than of aircraft. I think if you've got the necessary time and money to buy your own personal jetliner, insure it, get all the paperwork signed off for it and for you to fly it as a hobby, that's still GA, although where somebody with that much time on their hands gets that kind of money escapes me.

Some mere millionaires own jets with decent performance, aircraft that in capable hands could fly well in most weather but they're still GA and too many of them still die in bad weather.

Not always within your control (pandemic notwithstanding). Sometimes you have to catch a train, commute into work, etc., and "the weather is bad" is not always a valid excuse.

In many years the US commercial airlines have literally zero fatalities. You're more likely to die by falling in the shower.

https://www.airlines.org/dataset/safety-record-of-u-s-air-ca...

I remember hearing with the rise of regional airlines starting in the 90s the number of flight cycles (takeoffs/landings) went way up for some types of planes...and I assume for the "average flight." An increase in the number of short trips would make lowing the per-mile rating more impressive.

The stat is doubly misleading because it is skewed by the proliferation of long direct flights as turbofan widebody jets proliferated and air travel became more affordable which both happened in the same time period as that chart.

I don't think flying is particularly dangerous but the person you're replying to is being highly naive or misleading by taking that chart at face value.

I’m neither naive nor misleading. By any measure, airline travel - particularly in the US - is remarkably safe.

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/13/colgan-air-crash-10-years-ag...

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