A disturbing statistic

Dan Luke wrote:
"Sam Spade" wrote:

Or ask yourself: how many celebrities can you name who have been killed
in plane crashes vs. the number kiled in car crashes? In the former,
quite a few; in the latter, just a couple.

Now ask yourself: how much time do celebrities spend travelling in
airplanes vs. the time spent in cars?


Light aircraft? Not very many.


Cory Lidle, Scott Crossfield, Game show host Peter Tomarken, vocalist
Aaliyah, Mel Carnahan, Tony Lee Bettenhausen Jr., JFK Jr., John Denver,
baseball player Jim Hardin, Art Scholl, Hale Boggs, Buddy Holly, Audie
Murphy, Rocky Marciano, Jim "Gentleman" Reeves, Patsy Cline, Buddy Clark,
Will Rogers & Wiley Post... and that's not including helicopters. Not many?

How many of those are dead?

Some of those folks flew when biz jets were yet a dream.

Nearly everyone in the *21st Century* in show biz who has the money uses
biz jets, especially since fractional ownership came into being.

High end turbine helicopters fit into the biz jet category. They are
generally professionally flown. Much of the high-end rotorcraft stuff
the Wall Street Barons use up and down the East River are flown by two
crew members.

"Sam Spade" wrote:



Light aircraft? Not very many.


Cory Lidle, Scott Crossfield, Game show host Peter Tomarken, vocalist
Aaliyah, Mel Carnahan, Tony Lee Bettenhausen Jr., JFK Jr., John Denver,
baseball player Jim Hardin, Art Scholl, Hale Boggs, Buddy Holly, Audie
Murphy, Rocky Marciano, Jim "Gentleman" Reeves, Patsy Cline, Buddy
Clark, Will Rogers & Wiley Post... and that's not including helicopters.
Not many?

How many of those are dead?

Uh, all of them.

Some of those folks flew when biz jets were yet a dream.

So?

Nearly everyone in the *21st Century* in show biz who has the money uses
biz jets, especially since fractional ownership came into being.

So what?

High end turbine helicopters fit into the biz jet category. They are
generally professionally flown. Much of the high-end rotorcraft stuff the
Wall Street Barons use up and down the East River are flown by two crew
members.

Your point escapes me--I guess that makes us even.

--
Dan

"Fiction was invented the day Jonah arrived home and told his wife
that he was three days late because he had been swallowed by a
whale." -Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Those "10 times as dangerous" stats do get your attention.

However, assume that our approximately million pilots each fly 100
hours at 150 mph. 998,800 will survive the year.

If driving is 10 times as safe, 999,880 of a million drivers would
survive the year.

998,800 vs 999,880 for survival is not a big issue for me.
--
Gene Seibel
Tales of Flight - http://pad39a.com/gene/tales.html
Because I fly, I envy no one.






Dane Spearing wrote:
I've had many non-pilot friends and co-workers ask, "Is flying a small plane
more or less dangerous than driving a car?", to which my response has always
been "It depends on who is piloting the plane." However, in order to get
a firmer answer from a statistical standpoint on this question, I decided
to do a little homework:

According to the DOT, the 2005 automobile fatality accident rate is:
1.47 fatalities per 100 million miles traveled
(see http://www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov/)

According to the 2005 Nall Report, the general aviation fatality accident rate
is: 1.2 fatalities per 100,000 flight hours
(see http://www.aopa.org/asf/publications/nall.html)

In order to compare these two statistics, we obviously need to assume an
average velocity for either automobiles or GA aircraft. If we assume an
average GA aircraft velocity of 150 mph, then the aviation accident statistic
becomes 1.2 fatalities per 15 million miles.

Thus, based on the above, it appears that the GA fatality rate is somewhere
around 7 times that of automobiles. Now I realize that one could fudge the
average GA aircraft velocity velocity up or down, but I'm farily confident
that it's not above 200 mph, nor below 100 mph, which brakets the aviation
fatality rate between 5 and 10 times that of driving. A sobering thought...

Comments?

-- Dane

Dan Luke wrote:

"Sam Spade" wrote:


Light aircraft? Not very many.


Cory Lidle, Scott Crossfield, Game show host Peter Tomarken, vocalist
Aaliyah, Mel Carnahan, Tony Lee Bettenhausen Jr., JFK Jr., John Denver,
baseball player Jim Hardin, Art Scholl, Hale Boggs, Buddy Holly, Audie
Murphy, Rocky Marciano, Jim "Gentleman" Reeves, Patsy Cline, Buddy
Clark, Will Rogers & Wiley Post... and that's not including helicopters.
Not many?

How many of those are dead?


Uh, all of them.


Some of those folks flew when biz jets were yet a dream.


So?


Nearly everyone in the *21st Century* in show biz who has the money uses
biz jets, especially since fractional ownership came into being.


So what?


High end turbine helicopters fit into the biz jet category. They are
generally professionally flown. Much of the high-end rotorcraft stuff the
Wall Street Barons use up and down the East River are flown by two crew
members.


Your point escapes me--I guess that makes us even.


The rich folks are not flying around in little single engine birds or
Part 23 twins.