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Comment by pfdietz | Hacker News Reader

Very sad.

I will not fly in a small plane, just as I wouldn't ride a motorcycle (both have similar death/time rates.) Your preferences may differ.

This doesn't mean riding in a car is risk free. Many well known computer figures have died that way too. A friend of mine who went on to become fairly well known in the early internet died that way, a head-on accident on I-95.

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I wonder if small planes aren't actually far more dangerous than motorcycles. A significant minority of motorcycles are operated by thrill-seeking people who routinely drive recklessly and avoid wearing safety equipment. They tend to be young, inexperienced, and unconcerned with risk. Pilots, on the other hand, tend to be serious, careful people. They use checklists. They have to undergo extensive, supervised training. Pilots have a culture of understanding and mitigating risk. For all those differences, the mortality rates are almost the same.

The average death rate for motorcycles and general aviation is around 1 death per 100,000 hours. Just an average, as you observe.

BTW, flying a small plane costs maybe $40/hour in fuel, but if your life is worth $12.5M (the statistical value of a human life these days) then the cost of the risk is $125/hour, three times as much. This tells me it's likely a good idea to include an emergency whole-plane parachute system on general aviation aircraft, even at the cost of fuel efficiency.

I'm sorry to hear that. My best friend, since we were 2 years old, died at 29 in a motorcycle accident the same year he took over the family business. He got clipped by a car that swerved into his lane to avoid another car and that was all it took to take him away from us.

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