cova

No, but I think I would stay clear of flights from Europe to Asia, Eastbound.

mandolino

Statistically, yes. But even allowing for self-delusion, there are demonstrably safe drivers and reckless drivers. At the extreme safe end for example, many approach every intersection on the alert for a possible red-light runner, or drive through rural/forest areas as if a deer might jump out at any time.

Spin the statistics any way you want, but you'll never convince the public that a safe driver has an equal chance of serious accident as a reckless one.

Whereas, on a plane, your chances are only as good as the next passenger's.

GateHold

Here's another take...

http://www.askthepilot.com/the-crash-cluster/

You want to go where?

It would not surprise me if even demonstrably safe drivers are at greater risk of a car accident than an airplane accident. There is only so much a good driver can do to avoid reckless drivers. Highways are far less regulated than airways.

worldiswide

In a word..no

iluvcruising2

Recent crashes have just made me more thankful that I'm alive, and grateful to God. No kidding.

I was on one of the SQ planes flying over Ukraine.

We have to keep on living. Make the best of your life. Make a difference where it matters. Chill.

mandolino

Perhaps, perhaps not. I'm not aware of any stats that attempt to divide drivers by subgroups of driving behaviour.

My point is that the public's reaction to news of recent crashes is not entirely irrational .
A person who drives every day might only fly 3 or 4 times a year so is likely to view the risk differently.

WindowSeat123

Not disagreeing with your main point, but as for airplane accidents, I guess we also have to look at the kind of airplane accident. An amateur weekend pilot with a PPL flying his Cessna 172 would be statistically much more at risk of an accident than a commercial pilot with a ATP. Obviously this comes down to the more stringent and comprehensive training a professional pilot receives to fly paying passengers. But also because, in a grim sense, a small private plane usually carry a few passengers while a passenger plane can carry hundreds of passengers. So even if a passenger plane is alot less prone to accident, if it does have one, the impact is many times that of a private plane accident.

CPRich

It did.

With a coin flip, you can expect runs of HHHHHH or TTTTTT among the data after enough trials, even knowing the underlying probabilities have not changed.

But it seems to be a jump in logic to simply assume that the underlying probability of a plane crash today in not different from in previous years. There are many, many more geo-politica, mechanical, etc. variables than the underlying mechanics and physics of a coin toss.

When many uncontrolled variables are in place, I could argue that the best proxy for an underlying probability is that which is observed.

If someone took a coin for a few hours and gave it back to you, obviously blackened from some sort of machining, and you came up with 75 H in 100 tosses, would you continue to assume it was a statistical anomaly, as you "know" coins are always 50/50?

In theory, practice matches theory. In practice, is sometimes doesn't.

Just a statistical aside - flying is still way safer than any other mode of transportation. As I said earlier, the odds of having a problem may have gone from infinitesimal to 2*infinitesimal.