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     If you are afraid of flying, this site will tell you why. And it is not you, like most all other fear of flying sites attempt to convince you of. And of course, coincidentally, they are all trying to sell you something. This site is selling nothing.  

Is flying safe?
     Compared to riding a motorcycle or coal mining, yes. But compared to driving, if you are a good driver, wear a seat belt, and do not drink or speed while driving, flying is 30 times less safe than driving. People that push flying (they have ads on their web pages) always talk about how many traffic deaths there are. But that is because there are more automobile trips per second than there are airplane flights per day in the U.S., and also because most of those deaths are from alcohol, speeding, and no seat belt usage. 

What can I do about being afraid of flying?
     Knowledge is power – this site tells you why you are afraid, and why the most modern aircraft in the most modern country still crash. But Congress can make flying safe by directing both the airlines and the FAA to take corrective actions – and these actions are listed on this site and nowhere else. Let your Congressperson know you want change. 

     This site is aimed primarily at U.S. air travel by U.S. airlines, so most of the accidents cited are domestic. There are a few non-U.S. accidents included either because they are iconic – they are the most dramatic example of a particular type of failure (like Tenerife or the Concorde), or they show that a type of failure is still prevalent after all this time (like Spanair). For each accident, its significance in the context of air safety is discussed, and there is a link to the NTSB report and the Cockpit Voice Recorder Transcript for each crash if available. 

     Why do planes crash?
     Mostly it is pilot error. Airlines, aircraft manufacturers, and the FAA have rules and procedures and check-lists to prevent anything from going wrong. Many of these were implemented after crashes to prevent them from happening again. But you cannot prevent someone, no matter how well-trained, either through being tired (fatigue), or distraction, or inattention, or willful disregard, from not following these procedures, missing a critical step, and ending up crashing the plane.

      You cannot judge safety just by looking at how many passengers are dying in crashes. The same kind of mistake may one time kill everyone and the next just result in injuries – in a plane full of fuel travelling hundreds of miles per hour, just the smallest of differences can mean life or death. This is most obvious in take-off and landing mistakes – the more forgiving the runway and surrounding area, the greater the chance the passengers will survive, and vice-versa. So if the same types of mistakes are still being made today as were being made forty years ago (which is what this site shows), then you know we are still in serious trouble.

What This Site is About

     This site is not about general aviation (small planes with private pilots) safety. It covers commercial aviation accidents, but not those caused by mechanical failure or intentional acts. This means that it covers accidents that occur when an airplane in perfect condition and acceptable weather crashes (as will be shown) for totally avoidable reasons. 


Purpose of This Site  

     The goal of this site is not to make you more afraid of flying. Accidents are described to illustrate the common fundamental causes that tie almost all non-mechanical accidents together. These causes can be attacked and reduced, and this is aggressively being done by the airlines and other independent groups, and progress is being made. But more progress can be made, and faster, and this costs money that the airlines feel that they don't have. Ironically, the largest impediment to increasing your air safety is your government representative in Washington, the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration).  If you like, just read the section What You Can Do first. 
     All other fear of flying web sites attempt to treat your symptoms of being afraid of flying.  They do absolutely nothing about the safety of flying itself.  This is the only site that actually contains specific recommendations that will make flying much safer.  Which approach is the more effective solution?

Why Planes Crash

     Aside from mechanical failures (excluded from this review), why do planes crash? Aviation authorities classify almost half (45%) the airplane crashes as CFIT. Well, that doesn't sound too bad. Yes, except that CFIT stands for “Controlled Flight Into Terrain”, meaning that the pilots took a perfectly good operating airplane and flew it under control into the ground – and this accounts for just about half the crashes. It would be like finding half the automobile crashes involved people driving their cars in good weather at the speed limit off the road and into a tree.
     The organization in the United States that investigates all transportation accidents is the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB). They do an absolutely superb job – they are rigidly systematic, objective, thorough, logical, and complete. Read one of their reports sometime if you want to see why their conclusions are always on-the-mark. 

Professional Pilots Saving Lives

     This site does not talk about the mostly unrecognized quiet performance of flight and cabin crews carrying out their duties in a thoroughly professional manner day after day, year after year, delivering their passengers safely and reliably to their destinations regardless. Sometimes, unexpected and even bad things happen, and potential disasters are averted, saving lives. The author knows these events occur, but does not have the information to call attention to each one of these instances. Calling attention to one tends to in effect give less credit to all the others not given publicity. Sometimes even in a crash the results could have been even worse save for the flight crews' actions; in others flight crews have intentionally brought aircraft down into unpopulated areas at greater risk to themselves.

     This site uses aircraft crashes, things that went wrong, to illustrate what can yet stand further improvement. In no way does the author intend, and in no way should a reader interpret, that the author has a hidden agenda to disparage the character, professionalism, or quality of flight crews in general. If you think this, you are terribly mistaken. Flying an aircraft full of passengers is the most demanding and heavy-with-responsibility job in the world – a physician holds one life in his/her hands once in a while – a pilot has two or three hundred lives in his/her hands every day for most of the day. Think about it.

About the Author/Audience

     By amateurs/for amateurs is what this site is about. The author is not a professional pilot, has no financial ties to the aircraft industry, and is writing for the general public. Nonetheless, the author has professionally studied the causes of perfectly-good planes crashing for decades, and the science behind how pilots (and all of us) operate in similar situations, and is a little more knowledgeable on the subject than the average amateur. Note that the causes of the crashes contained in here are all from official sources, as are all the other data cited, as well as all the science of how people take (or fail to take) the right actions at the right time. None of this is the least bit controversial. The only controversy is how fast the FAA should act.

Photo Credit – copyright NOVA/PBS