Eli5: why do plane fleets get grounded after accidents but car fleets remain on the road even though they may have serious issues?

Question

Outside of a brief aside in the movie Fight Club and what I assume are economic reasons, I’ve never seen good compelling reasons why airplanes are grounded for accidents, while cars do not seem to undergo the same level of scrutiny?

Is it just because cars are tested more before they enter the market?

From an outsider’s perspective, it seems that airplanes are already much safer than cars- so what gives?

In: Engineering

Answer 1

Because if anything goes wrong in a car, you can always just pull over and jump out. If anything goes wrong in a plane, there’s no rest stop to pull over.