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Comment by _mitterpach | Hacker News Reader

So many tragic plane incidents lately. Is there any reason for this increased occurence, or is it actually within normal margins?

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Small planes like that crash all the time. You’re just hearing about it because we’re all on high alert - and in this circumstance, because the deceased has some fame.

I think Harrison Ford crashed TWO.

Chartered (= small) planes crash sometimes. Helicopters crash a lot.

Big airline crashes are virtually non-existent, to the point where US airlines had 16 fatality-free years until this January, on 210 million flights. Flying commercially is mind-boggingly safe.

To be a bit pedantic this isn't a chartered flight. That's a whole level above this that does require some more specialized licensure. Carl was flying his own plane so this would be good ol' General Aviation. A private pilot's license is not allowed to offer flights for pay only cost sharing (at least in the US) and only for flights the pilot would otherwise have taken without passengers (tougher to prove but easy to mess up if you're trying to skirt the law).

It's an open secret, borderline meme in the General Aviation community about rich plane owners being overconfident and impatient, resulting in flying into poor weather conditions and getting into trouble.

https://www.faa.gov/media/19371 "get-there-itis"

When I was much younger, my mom worked for a wealthy small business owner. Her job involved overnight supervision of pregnant horses; the foals were very valuable, and the owners of the sires were paid handsomely. Anyway, sometimes I would go along for a sleep over, enjoy the adventure of being away from home, play some pinball. Whatever.

Anyway, one day (as an adult) I met the owner, shook his hand. No big deal. But the very next day I was driving along and saw black smoke, and found out later that it was coming from a helicopter crash, and one of the victims was the man I had met and shook hands with a day earlier.

It was really eerie, and of course had a relatively direct affect on our lives, not just mentally / emotionally, but ultimately the stable changed ownership and my mom ended up having to get a different job.

If there's a point, sometimes crashes (and deaths) don't matter to us, personally (even if they matter to plenty of other people), and sometimes they do. You definitely notice the ones that matter to you personally, or are just on a larger scale than is normal.

So far this year there's about the same number of General Aviation crashes you'd expect they're making the news more because there's more eyes on the situation because of the major commercial aviation crashes (which are decidedly not normal).

General Aviation is quite a bit less safe than commercial aviation for a lot of reasons; fewer engines means more risk of failure, lack of maintenance due to cost or understanding, pilots are less well trained (generally speaking of course), GA often flies at lower altitudes giving less time for recovery, etc.

You can scroll back through the FAA's release archive for a look at just how many incidents happen that never make the wider news you've likely never heard of unless you live in the area it happened (and maybe not even then given the state of local news).

https://www.faa.gov/newsroom/statements/accident_incidents

Try the AV Herald, you’d be surprised how many incidents there in the world every day

Small plane accidents happen all the time.

>From 2015 to 2020, there were a total of 7,294 accidents

>From 2015 to 2020, there were a total of 2,220 fatalities

https://flyfright.com/plane-crash-statistics/small-airplane-...

Small 4 seater plane, flying solo, through the mountains and in bad weather. Not recommended.

I had the same reaction. I wonder if it’s simply that more people are flying?

We are getting older and so are your heroes. They just die.

This would be more applicable to death by natural causes, not death by plane accident.

This is true but also the longer you live the more people you get to recognize at least by name.

It sometimes feels the more evil you are, the longer you live.

Larry Silverstein, George Soros, Rupert Murdoch, Charles Koch, Donald Trump are enjoying their best lives.

And before that, David Rockefeller (til 101 years!).

Life is unfair from the beginning.

Only the good die young. I like the Iron Maiden song.

Is George Soros evil? I always thought he did a lot of good for the world.

He is not, but the extreme right likes to demonize him so they can use his name as a smear but claim they’re not anti-Semitic.

A lot of plane/helicopter deaths are assassinations. I'm not saying any of the recent ones are, but the data for "normal margins" is probably skewed.

You probably don't see as many assassinations from heat stroke, submarines, etc. There's a few under "self harm", but the actual self harm deaths far exceed the whistleblower "self harm" cases to the point that they're not too statistically significant.

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