How safe is it, really?

"Michael" wrote in message
om...
"Mike Rapoport" wrote

It seems to me like most pilots here are in denial about the true
risks of what they are doing. I also believe this is the primary
reason we have the product liability climate in GA that we do.

There have been lots of lawsuits against aircraft and component
manufacturers by grieving widows and orphans.

As there have been against companies which do bungee-jumping, parachuting,
hang gliding, mountain climbing, deep-sea fishing, and a million other
activities which any logical person can see require taking risks which can
cause death. "Well, we're going to tie a rubber band around your ankles and
throw you off a bridge."

What it comes down to is acceptance of responsibility. Not a century ago it
was a rare family that hadn't lost one or more young children to disease by
the age of ten and if you survived that there were wars, workplace
accidents, railroad crashes, ships sinking, and a long list of now-routine
illnesses that meant certain death. Today when someone dies in their sixties
we say "so young" and the loss of a child is an agony beyond conception.

We understand everything. We dig tunnels thirty miles long under oceans and
dam rivers to make lakes the size of small countries. We cut peoples' chests
open, stop their hearts to replace a valve or four as if it were just
another engine, and administer a shock to start it all running again.
Satellites a hundred miles above the Earth send images which have turned the
most devastating storms into mere incoveniences. The temperature of the
polar ice cap is three degrees higher than normal? Clearly we are burning
too much fossil fuel!

When an airliner crashes, we suck up five million little bits off the ocean
floor and put it all back together. It takes a year or two, but then a man
in glasses gets up before a screen, and shows a film which explains exactly
what happened. "Here, you see, these indents the size of a dime show where a
cross-member hit, consistent with our theory that a spark in the tank caused
an explosion."

And none of this progress is illusory. The tunnels do not collapse and fill
with water. The patient gets out of bed and three weeks later resumes
hosting his late-night talk show and likely watches his grandchildren
graduate from high school. Airline travel has become safer than driving a
car. Hurricanes in the US regularly cause tens of billions in damage yet
kill hardly any. Men fly, the sick are healed, and oracles predict the
future from their perch in the sky. Have we not become the gods of our own
existence?

The only thing we don't believe in is the unpreventable accident. When
someone dies of cancer, the family sues the doctor for not finding it
sooner. When someone dies in a car crash, the automaker is sued because a
properly-designed car should allow the driver to survive rolling off the
road at sixty miles an hour. Every accident happens for a reason, and since
we know airplanes run out of gas, shouldn't we design ones that can't?

Believe me, the problem runs far deeper than a misplaced belief in the
safety of small planes.

-cwk.

"C Kingsbury" wrote in message
nk.net...

"Michael" wrote in message
om...
"Mike Rapoport" wrote

"Well, we're going to tie a rubber band around your ankles and
throw you off a bridge."


You make is sound like a crazy thing to do!

Mike
MU-2

"Mike Rapoport" wrote
"Well, we're going to tie a rubber band around your ankles and
throw you off a bridge."

You make is sound like a crazy thing to do!

It is.

Also sort of fun.

But going off a bridge with a parachute is more fun.

BTDT

Michael

Recently, C Kingsbury posted:
(largely snipped for brevity)

The only thing we don't believe in is the unpreventable accident. When
someone dies of cancer, the family sues the doctor for not finding it
sooner. When someone dies in a car crash, the automaker is sued
because a properly-designed car should allow the driver to survive
rolling off the road at sixty miles an hour. Every accident happens
for a reason, and since we know airplanes run out of gas, shouldn't
we design ones that can't?

Believe me, the problem runs far deeper than a misplaced belief in the
safety of small planes.

A most excellent summary of the "modern human's" state of mind. Thanks for
posting this!

Neil

"C Kingsbury" wrote
Believe me, the problem runs far deeper than a misplaced belief in the
safety of small planes.

So do you know how many successful lawsuits there have been against
parachute manufacturers? The answer is zero. The last attempt I
heard about was against Relative Workshop. It was eventually settled
by the PLAINTIFF (the woman who got hurt) paying the DEFENDANT (the
manufacturer of the parachute system) for legal expenses.

So what's the difference? Why do parachute manufacturers win all the
lawsuits against them, but the aircraft manufacturers don't?

The answer, my friend, is HONESTY. First of all, skydivers are honest
about the risks they take (mostly, anyway). There's a real "Blue
Skies, Black Death" attitude that is prevalent. Second, the
manufacturers are honest. They tell you that this **** could fail and
kill you - up front and in big letters, not in the fine print. And
you sign a waiver.

Personally, I would love to see a similar approach to little
airplanes.

Michael

"Michael" wrote in message
So what's the difference? Why do parachute manufacturers win all the
lawsuits against them, but the aircraft manufacturers don't?

The answer, my friend, is HONESTY. First of all, skydivers are honest
about the risks they take (mostly, anyway).

I really doubt this. It's lawyers and the silly litagous legal system that
make obscene reward settlements a fact of life. I don't believe for a
second that almost all families of dead jumpers would refuse a chance for a
big settlement. And, the fact that parachute manufacturers do get sued
suggests something else is going on. Maybe judges recognize that only an
insane person would jump out of a perfectly good airplane.

There's a real "Blue
Skies, Black Death" attitude that is prevalent. Second, the
manufacturers are honest. They tell you that this **** could fail and
kill you - up front and in big letters, not in the fine print. And
you sign a waiver.

Does the waiver relate to the jump facility AND the manufacturer?

moo

"Happy Dog" wrote in message
...
"Michael" wrote in message
So what's the difference? Why do parachute manufacturers win all the
lawsuits against them, but the aircraft manufacturers don't?

The answer, my friend, is HONESTY. First of all, skydivers are honest
about the risks they take (mostly, anyway).

I really doubt this. It's lawyers and the silly litagous legal system
that make obscene reward settlements a fact of life. I don't believe for
a second that almost all families of dead jumpers would refuse a chance
for a big settlement. And, the fact that parachute manufacturers do get
sued suggests something else is going on. Maybe judges recognize that
only an insane person would jump out of a perfectly good airplane.

There's a real "Blue
Skies, Black Death" attitude that is prevalent. Second, the
manufacturers are honest. They tell you that this **** could fail and
kill you - up front and in big letters, not in the fine print. And
you sign a waiver.

Does the waiver relate to the jump facility AND the manufacturer?

moo


I think that Michael's point is that virtually everybody recognizes that
there is risk in skydiving but prefers to think that flying is as safe as
driving. Nobody takes their two year old skydiving.

Mike
MU-2

"Mike Rapoport" wrote in

I think that Michael's point is that virtually everybody recognizes that
there is risk in skydiving but prefers to think that flying is as safe as
driving. Nobody takes their two year old skydiving.

I'd like to see some stats on accidents vs. lawsuits before I believe that
dead skydivers' families are that different from dead pilots' families.

moo

"Happy Dog" wrote in message
...
"Mike Rapoport" wrote in

I think that Michael's point is that virtually everybody recognizes that
there is risk in skydiving but prefers to think that flying is as safe
as
driving. Nobody takes their two year old skydiving.

I'd like to see some stats on accidents vs. lawsuits before I believe that
dead skydivers' families are that different from dead pilots' families.

I doubt they are. It's just a question of likelihood of winning the suit,
which I suppose gets back to Michael's point. But I maintain that the
general culture of lawyers versus responsibility remains the real problem.

A funny story. Back in the late 80s my father was in a car accident when an
old woman crossed the double yellow on a blind turn. He walked away from it,
but after a few weeks his back started to hurt terribly and he eventually
had to have an operation for a herniated disk. A colleague referred him to a
very successful and well-known personal injury lawyer, who at first
suspected that his case would be worth between 250 and 500 thousand dollars
for suffering and lost wages, etc. But when they kicked the old woman's
insurance company they found she had only the minimum $30k coverage.
Moreover, she had quite literally no assets whatsoever. As the senior lawyer
was relating this to my father, one of the younger associates walked in and
said, "hey, Chevy's been having a lot of problems with seat belts in that
year's trucks, we could probably get them for two hundred." My father said,
"but I wasn't wearing my seatbelt." The associate said, "Don't tell me that!
A lot of times people forget things when they've been in an accident." My
father refused to go ahead with the case, but it provided a very revealing
look into how the system works, and this was fifteen years ago.

-cwk.

I'd like to see some stats on accidents vs. lawsuits before I
believe that
dead skydivers' families are that different from dead pilots'
families.

I doubt they are. It's just a question of likelihood of winning the
suit,
which I suppose gets back to Michael's point. But I maintain that the
general culture of lawyers versus responsibility remains the real
problem.

First off, I think they are different. Skydiving has a very different
demographic than flying. While it is not any more likely to kill you
than flying (statistically, the annual per-participant fatality rate is
actually slightly lower) it is perceived as more dangerous. It is also
more physically demanding, and much cheaper. Thus you typically get a
much younger participant, and one who is far more honest about the
risks. It's not as extreme as it once was, when getting married meant
ceremonially burning your gear, but a skydiver with a family to support
and a non-jumping spouse is still more the exception than the rule. A
spouse who is a jumper is highly unlikely to sue, and one who is
childless and young is far less likely to need to sue.

The likelihood of winning the suit is also a lot lower. Waivers are
the norm rather than the exception, and they are GOOD waivers. They
have been upheld as valid many times (Hulsey v. Elsinore was a landmark
case - in California of all places) and more importantly, they have
been upheld as a matter of law - meaning the judge has not allowed the
case to go to the jury. That makes winning much cheaper and far more
certain. Hulsey v. Elsinore was actually appealed, and the directed
ruling was upheld on appeal as well.

It's certainly the case that we have a litigious culture, but the fact
is that the tort system is really the only realistic means of redress
for corporate malfeasance (the Pinto comes to mind). I fully support
our current system in its present form (it being the best of a very bad
lot) when it comes to normal consumer products - the necessities of
life. Caveat emptor is just not realistic when it comes to basics such
as housing, transportation, medical care, food, or employment.
However, I believe a different standard is reasonable for elective
high-risk activities.

As long as you present the case that small private airplanes are safe
and practical transportation, don't be surprised if the industry is
held to the same standards as airliners, trains, and automobiles. Once
you accept that they are simply dangerous toys, you can hope for some
relief. I am hoping that light sport aircraft, which will not be
authorized for any commercial use, will enjoy a status similar to
parachutes. That certainly seems to be the case with the certification
process for the aircraft (if not the airmen).

Of course in reality some of us DO use the planes as practical business
transportation, and paradoxically that seems to be much safer than
using the airplanes as toys (so much for the paradigm that never flying
when you really need to be there must be safer) but even then, we are
aware that the increased speed and convenience comes with a price not
only in cash but in safety.

Michael