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- We must thoroughly investigate the D.C. plane crash. Now is no time to be complacent about air safety.
- But also keep in mind that while more planes are in the air these days, accidents on commercial airlines are exceedingly rare.
- Traveling by car is far more dangerous.
“Perspective is everything,” my father used to say.
Older eyes that watched the tragic news of a plane crash over Washington, D.C., on Wednesday night saw it differently than younger ones.
If you had come of age in the 1950s, ‘60s and ‘70s, you were reminded of how rare such events have become.
When I was a kid in the ‘70s, the news of mass casualty plane crashes was a steady drum beat. A constant on television and in the newspapers.
That’s of little comfort, of course, to those who had loved ones aboard American Airlines Flight 5342 from Wichita or the UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter that collided with it.
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All 64 people on the airliner and all three on the helicopter are presumed dead.
More planes in the air, but fewer crashes
This is a moment to awake from our complacency about air safety and investigate thoroughly how such a thing could happen.
But it’s also worth keeping some perspective as we do.
If you are flying on a commercial airliner in the United States or Europe, the odds of survival are greatly in your favor, according to Allianz Commercial, a corporate insurer. Your chances of dying in a bike accident or lightning strike are greater.
The risk of fatality on commercial flights has declined from 1 every 350,000 boardings through the years of 1968-1977 to 1 every 13.7 million boardings during 2018-2022, according to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Not only have airline accidents and fatalities fallen sharply in that time, but they also have done so while air traffic has grown exponentially.
By one estimate, global consumption of air travel grew by 7,486% between 1960 and 2018, according to Ryan Katz-Rosene, an academic at the University of Ottawa who studies aviation.
Commercial aviation had no fatal accidents in 2023
That means the kinds of catastrophic accidents like what happened on Wednesday in the nation’s capital have become exceedingly rare in the advanced nations of the world.
In 2023, in fact, there were no fatal accidents in commercial aviation, even though there was a 20% increase in flights to roughly 32 million, Airbus reported.
Airplane and navigation technology, equipment and training have all led to advances in the industry to help protect passengers.
But we do have a generation gap.
You could see the difference in perspectives play out on social media on Thursday.
DC plane crash reaction shows a generation gap
Former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich got on an airliner and tweeted on X, formerly Twitter:
“I am on an American Airlines flight this morning and it was very touching when the pilot described the tragic loss of life in the midair collision at Reagan National Airport and asked for a moment of silence to pray for those who died and their families. It was a very sobering and emotional moment, and I am very glad he did it.”
Younger people responded that they would have gotten off a flight in which the pilot had done that so soon after an air tragedy.
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An older woman said such a message would unnerve her grandchildren.
“My young teen grandkids were flying on Sunday. I cannot imagine the anxiety this would have caused them to learn of a crash just hours before. I don’t think it was appropriate or professional.”
She is probably right.
The car ride home is more dangerous
No doubt, every passenger on Gingrich’s plane was wrestling with their fear and the fresh knowledge that other air travelers like them had only hours before met their deaths in the Potomac River. They didn’t need the pilot dwelling on it.
However, we all need to remember that fear of flying is largely unfounded.
The pilot might have instead told his passengers congratulations, they had just survived the most perilous part of their journey — their drive to the airport.
Because according to USA Facts, Steve Ballmer’s project to make government data more transparent, air travel is the safest form of transit — safer than passenger cars, trucks, subways, trains, buses or motorcycles.
In 2022, there were 47 passenger injuries over 709 billion miles of air travel, which means, according to the website, “you could circle the globe over 600,000 times for every one airplane injury.”
That’s a long way of saying …
Save your white knuckles for the car ride.
Phil Boas is an editorial columnist with The Arizona Republic. Email him at phil.boas@arizonarepublic.com.
