There's been enough written about the cultural changes since MD and Boeing, and goes to show that incidents are unlikely just that. Indeed, incidents keep coming.
Statistically they're still rare, fortunately. There's a lot of these planes in the air every day, and it's far more likely to be involved in a car crash caused by somebody not paying attention, than it is to be on one of these flights.
That said, I don't really want to live with the nature of all these flaws. This is not their rocket science that is failing, but it rather reeks of complacency.
I still remember the wrenches found in early Dreamliners. Noone died, but I mean, come on.
I feel the car comment, which is always mentioned when people talk about flying, is a whataboutism. We aren’t talking about cars, we’re talking about flying in a plane and how it seems a lot less safe today than even a decade ago.
I think additionally, many people feel there are very real factors skewing the rate of car crashes compared to what it'd be from only "good" drivers with how our bar for driver's licenses in America is so pitifully low. And beyond that, that they can generally have more agency about their fate as a driver than as a passenger in a plane, while it'd seem far simpler to imagine quickly stopping a car in response to a failure than managing to land a passenger plane.
Bonus multiplier if someone was then reading articles about pilots and ATC not getting any sleep.
I think also car crashes are generally caused by operator error. Plane crashes are more likely (maybe?) to be caused by mechanical malfunction.
The equivalent would be car crashes caused by mechanical failure where even an expert driver couldn’t have avoided catastrophe.
Though, maybe that’s balanced out by some large percentage of car crash deaths being the driver and/or passengers in the “other” car who were struck unexpectedly by a driver who was reckless, distracted or impaired.
Either way, I agree, it seems like a stretch to call plane and car crashes equivalent.
Planes are substitutes for cars. When talking about plane safety, it’s not whataboutism to put statistics into perspective by noting that choosing to drive instead of flying would be much riskier.
Planes are more comparable to buses than to cars (unless it's a small general aviation plane). So a better comparison would be between the risks of flying and the risks of taking a long-distance bus.
> I'm not sure why you think busses are more equivalent to planes other than holding more passengers.
The more I think about it, the more similarities I find. For instance, both long-distance buses and large airplanes are usually boarded only at dedicated places (bus terminals and airports); both have a separate baggage compartment below the passenger floor; both have built-in bathrooms; both are driven by trained drivers/pilots; both have a set schedule for departure; and so on.
I've taken plenty of long distance bus trips (12 hours or more in each direction), and I've also taken many airplane trips (usually on the 737 family), and I'd say the experience on both is very similar: taking a taxi to the bus terminal or the airport, looking for the correct spot or gate for boarding, putting most of the luggage in the lower compartment of the bus or airplane, waiting until the scheduled departure time, sitting still on your designated seat for most of the trip, arriving at the other terminal or airport, retrieving the luggage, taking a taxi to the actual destination. There are some differences, for instance on a bus there's a rest stop for food after several hours, while on an airplane they serve some food in the vehicle itself, but these differences are minor compared to the differences between an airplane trip and a car trip.
You’re pattern matching on how the two modes work, but that isn’t what economic substitution means. Substitution means people buy one product instead of another, like the way Beyond Meat products are a substitute for meat despite having essentially zero production or digestive similarities at any reasonable level of reduction.
I often fly 300-400 miles (I’m in the US where trains are a joke). If airplanes became seriously unsafe, I would drive. There is no world where I would take a bus instead.
> You’re pattern matching on how the two modes work
No, I'm going by my own experience. I've taken plenty of long-distance bus trips (I've just checked on a map site, one long-distance bus trip I've made many times is around 800 km). Several of them were to cities I could have taken an airplane to (and I did take an airplane to them in other circumstances), and the only difference is that the bus trip usually took longer (and was less expensive).
> If airplanes became seriously unsafe, I would drive. There is no world where I would take a bus instead.
If airplanes became seriously unsafe, I would take a long-distance bus. I can't say there's no world where I would buy a car and learn how to drive just to avoid taking a long-distance bus, but I can't see any advantage other than avoiding the short taxi steps to and from the bus terminal at either end of the trip.
Because in general, at least in the US, the choice for most routes that people take is to fly or take their car. Taking a long distance bus isn’t on the table for most moderately well off people and train usually isn’t a reasonable option.
You choose what car to buy, but the bus company chooses what us to buy. You maintain your own car but the bus company maintains the bus. You drive your own car, but a professional hired and vetted by the bus company drives the bus. You drive your car from a to b when you want, but the bus travels along predefined routes at specific times.
