How safe is it, really?

"June" wrote in message
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We have 2 little girls. I worry for his safety as it seems there is
another small plane crash every other time you turn on the news. I
think he should focus on this hobby when the kids are older, not when
he has such a young family.

Your opinions would be appreciated.

Is there really? Where do you live? Here in the Seattle area, we have news
of a fatal car crash on the news almost every night. Local aviation
accidents are extremely unusual, as far as news reports go, maybe 6 or 12 a
year.

I would say before you make the claim that "there is another small plane
crash every other time you turn on the news", you actually do a real survey.
Keep a log of every time you watch the news, and note when a car crash and
which an airplane crash are reported. Do this for a few months. At the
end, compare your notes with your perception.

I think you'll find that there's your perception does not match your notes.
It's human nature to focus on things that worry us the most, in spite of
relatively low risk, and to overlook things that we take for granted, in
spite of relatively high risk.

As far as the actual relative risks go, most people agree that general
aviation is more dangerous than driving (as a point of comparison).
Disagreements come up with respect to just how much more dangerous, and how
safe one can make it. This mainly is a result of the fact that you can
evaluate the relative safety in a variety of ways, not all of which result
in the exact same answer.

Factual things that are not open to debate include that there are nearly
50,000 fatalaties due to motor vehicles every year, while there are only
about 500 fatalities in fixed-wing general aviation aircraft every year
(from around 300 accidents). Granted, there are more people driving than
flying, so the relative risks are higher for flying than driving. But an
individual's total exposure is also almost always lower for flying than for
driving, usually by a significant amount, simply because they do it a lot
less.

It is also a fact that there are lots of activities that people commonly do
that are as dangerous or more dangerous than flying. Whether you have a
similar debate with your husband regarding those types of activities, I
don't know.

IMHO, if you and your family are not prepared to lose either you or your
husband, then you need to fix that. Whether or not he's flying, bad things
can happen, and they won't necessarily wait until the kids are older. If
you ARE prepared, then you ought to (IMHO) live life, and not worry so much
about whether what you're doing could kill you.

Nearly everything we do has the potential for killing us, including taking a
shower. Even for a pilot, the cumulative odds of something else killing
that pilot are MUCH greater than the singular odds of flying killing that
pilot. The real question should not be "how dangerous is flying", but
rather "how much MORE dangerous will be life be if I fly?" I personally
don't believe that the incremental increase in risk of death is all that
great from flying (once you consider all the other ways to get killed), even
if flying itself is demonstrably more dangerous than an individual activity
(like driving).

I realize this reply is as much a philosophical one as it is one that
actually answers your question. But honestly, what did you expect, really?
Every single one of us you've asked has made the decision to fly, in spite
of whatever risks exist. We all obviously think that flying is reasonably
safe, whether that's because of a relatively low accident rate or a
philosophically fatalistic point of view.

Pete