Edit:
- article title update, bump not bomb jolt’
- added comma
DENVER — An engine cover on a Boeing 737 operated by Southwest Airlines ripped open just after taking off from Denver International Airport Sunday morning.
The Houston-bound Southwest flight took off from DIA around 7:45 a.m., and returned to the airport 30 minutes later, landing safely. No injuries were reported.
That’s not how statistics works.
Just because you win the lottery, that doesn’t mean it was bound to happen. It’s the same with bad luck. Your tile floor in the bathroom is literally more dangerous than an airplane. Do you steel yourself to confront death when you step out of the shower?
You’re statistically unlikely to be killed by a shark. Do you want to share a swimming pool with one?
Statistics aren’t a suit of armor and they can be deeply misleading without context. If every plane in the air crashed today, how would the statistics change? Would 0.00001 become 0.00002? Would you tell people there was nothing to fear because it’s still statistically unlikely?
I would guess that every single passenger jet that has ever crashed had at least one person who reassured themselves “it won’t happen to me”.
If more than a million Americans safely swam in that pool yesterday, I would feel comfortable swimming there today.
Depends on the kind of shark. Most sharks ignore people. You can pet reef sharks. People pay thousands of dollars to swim with them. That’s the context.
The context here is that planes are almost excessively safe. The door was sucked off of one and no one even died. Can you tell me the last time a fatal accident happened to a commercial airplane in the US?
So you’re when it comes to my shark analogy you demand nuance down to the specific type of shark but for planes you’re happy with “It was safe last year so it must still be safe now”?
Is this some bizarre shill campaign or is everyone trying to be crowned “King of science and rationalism”?
And do you know what the FAA said about it? “This incident should have never happened and it cannot happen again”. But don’t worry about the whistleblowers saying management has been covering up defects and cutting corners, “the statistics” say it’s safe.
I could load you on to a burning plane with a drunk and the answer to “Can you tell me the last time a fatal accident happened to a commercial airplane in the US?” wouldn’t change until you hit the ground.
But don’t worry, because “statistics”.
Everyday there are thousands of Boeing flights that go off without a hitch. It’s still statically completely unlikely that anything bad will happen to you on a Boeing flight. So much so that it’s probably not even worth worrying about at all.
But this isn’t to say that we should just let their bs slide. This is exactly why flying is so safe: we are sticklers for making sure they do everything right. If that’s going in the opposite direction, we should nip it in the bud long before it gets anywhere close to the point where you should question the safety of it.
But, again, we aren’t even remotely close to that now. It makes no logical sense to be afraid of flying right now, even on a Boeing jet. And I would like to keep it that way which is why I think their issues need to be addressed.
If you swim in a swimming pool with a shark, you are not statistically unlikely to be killed by one.
This is a really terrible analogy, for a really terrible way of thinking about risk.
Assuming you have a point here, then based on the logic you seem to be trying to to use, you should also never drive a car, go outside, eat a sandwich, etc. You know, since there was a point when people doing those things died, and those people thought they’d be ok too.
I think it’s clear that you’re never going to get my point. Maybe you could apply for a management job at Boeing?
Pretty sure I got your point, it’s just terrible.
If it helps to tell yourself that, you go right ahead.