Have you ever run out of gas?

I must admit, that I also pray when I travel long distances on the highway. I wish there were a law that would only allow me to drive so many hours a day and that there would be someone to enforce it. Sometimes, I've driven 18 hours at a stretch and didn't stop until I began seeing thing that weren't there. My simple point is that "pilots," "training," "procedure," and that hated word "regulation," are what is safe about flying - not the vehicule. Try this, number crunchers. Compare the safety of airline travel to travel in private planes. Something changes, I imagine. Now imagine this. Imagine the person who just cut you off without signaling, or me driving for eighteen hours without sleep at the helm of a passenger plane. Imagine, hundreds of us up in the air every day. It would not only be a catastrophe for those passengers in the air, but one for the innocents on the ground - much worse than car crashes. Why is it so hard for people to admit that real government regulations and oversight (even lawsuits and fear of them) can be good things? Have we been that brainwashed?

Actually, there is nothing unsafe or precarious about flying. It is simply alien to a human being. If a human is left in a desert, he can theoretically walk out to a more temperate climate. If that same human finds himself in a body of water, he can swim to a shore. In other words, our bodies are capable of dealing with land or water without the assistance of technology. But, flying is different. If the human who walked out of the desert or swam to shore jumped from a cliff, that human has absolutely no chance of surviving without technology. When we take to sky, we are completely and utterly dependent upon our inventions and if our machines fail, we fall. I agree with ballspot that flying is so incident free because of government regulation and highly trained pilots, but to state "that there is nothing inherently safe about jetting through the air at 585 miles an hour, 30,000 feet above the earth in a steel tube propelled by huge controlled explosions." and to imply that moving along on a highway at 70 miles an hour in a 3000 pound machine propelled by controlled combustion with rank amateurs is inherently more safe is not clear thinking. What is disconcerting is we are doing something (flying) that our puny bodies can not perform. Also, to further illustrate the safety of flying, the odds of dying in plane crash are 250,000 - 1, but the odds of dying in a car crash are 5,000-1. I would suggest to ballspot that he may want to rethink when he prays.

You so right! In fact, if you are not drinking, you have a magic bubble of protection around you that will not allow anyone who is drinking to hit you.

Who wrote: You're right - and consider that the vast majority of traffic deaths are caused by two things -- speeding and drunk driving. So if you stay in the speed limit and don't drive drunk, there is no way flying is safer.

The actual percentages from the Department of Transportation put alcohol related vehicle deaths at slightly under 50% of the total (40,000 x 50% = 20,000) and excessive speed at 16% of the total, certainly a large percentage, but far from the "vast majority". I'm not mathematician enough to reconcile those two figures but the fact remains that by far more people die in cars than in airplanes every year.

What cannot be denied is that if 1,250 people were dieing in plane crashes every month there would be a public uproar. (15,000 to 20,000 dead divided by 12 months)

And to Patrick: Just as air travel is heavily regulated, so too is automobile transportation, but in view of the disparity of casualties I would observe that you're far safer in the care of the regulated airline industry where the rules ARE observed than on the road where they ARE MUCH LESS SO.

You're right - and consider that the vast majority of traffic deaths are caused by two things -- speeding and drunk driving. So if you stay in the speed limit and don't drive drunk, there is no way flying is safer.

Actually, I more or less agree with ballspot's post. He is talking about the inherent dangers of flying. That flying is safe in practice is mostly the result of regulation, traning, and multiple layers of technolgoy, all of which combine to undermine, if you will, the natural precariousness of traveling aloft.

Patrick Smith

With respect to relative safety the numbers speak for themselves.

For the year 2007 in the United States there were roughly 40,000 highway and city traffic deaths!

For the same year there were NO airline carrier deaths.

Fountains of Paradise and Not Childhood's End detailed the construction of the space elevator.

Whenever I read about, or take part personally in a discussion involving technological issues I am struck by how many people have little or no understanding of the scientific and engineering principles underpinning virtually every aspect of our “modern” day-to-day world.

Arthur C. Clark, was a prolific science fiction writer, and futurist, author of such novels as 2001 A Space Oddesy, and Childhood’s End, a story about the construction of the first “elevator” to space (An idea that is under serious consideration by NASA). Often credited with the concept of geosynchronous satellites, he perceptively observed that, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”

Your concise and informative column shines a welcome and much needed light on one of the most frequently used but poorly understood aspects of that modern world, aviation.

I wish it appeared in the mainstream media. It would certainly improve the understanding of the flying public, but more importantly it would help to bolster their confidence in the safety of air travel in general.

I have arguments with my brother all the time about this. He is an aircraft mechanic and he always says that flying is safer than driving. BULLSHIT! I never pray when I get in a car. I (and I'm sure about 80 percent of passangers) pray everytime I fly. And if there is a sudden, catastrophic failure of one of the car's engines. I just pull over and get out. What makes airplanes safe is GOVERNMENT REGULATION and above all well trained pilots. If drivers were so well trained and observed rules and protocols they way pilots do, then we'd see similar saftey records (this would, of course, mean that there would have to be as few obstacles on the ground as there are in the air). But I must insist that there is nothing inherently safe about jetting through the air at 585 miles an hour, 30,000 feet abouve the earth in a steel tube propelled by huge controlled explosions.