I have an irrational phobia of flying, I know all the stats about how flying is safest way to travel. I was wondering if someone could explain the why though. I’m hoping that if I can better understand what makes it safe that maybe I won’t be afraid when I fly.
Edit: to everyone who has commented with either personal stories or directly answering the question I just want you to know you all have moved me to tears with your caring. If I could afford it I would award every comment with gold.
Edit2: wow way more comments and upvotes then I ever thought I’d get on Reddit. Thank you everyone. I’m gonna read them all this has actually genuinely helped.
In: 7227
Limiting this to commercial flights, as your question is about travel and not hobby flying. There are many aspects to airliner safety. Here are a few of them:
* The pilots are professionals. Unlike cars on the road, the only people flying your airliner are people who’ve gone through rigorous training to get their license in the first place, have to maintain their license through experience (enough flying hours) as well as repeat training throughout their career. Compare that to your uncle Joe at 60 who got their license at 18 and has 40 odd years of bad habits built up and no training on changed driving rules or driving environment over the past 4 decades.
* Pilots are trained for specific planes. Your uncle Joe learned to drive in a small 4 door sedan, but is now driving a huge Dodge Ram truck, without instruction in how the much bigger truck behaves differently compared to the small sedan.
* The pilot has a copilot on deck who can correct the pilot if he misses something. Uncle Joe doesn’t have a designated co-driver whose duty is to watch for mistakes.
* The pilot has mandatory rest cycles. Uncle Joe can drive all the way from Miami to Seattle without anybody stopping him to take a rest.
* All incidents are reported and especially major incidents get investigated, continuously improving safety features, be it in procedures and checklists or technical features. If uncle Joe gets into an accident, nobody is forcing him to learn from the situation and adjust behaviour to improve overall safety.
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