Hi all

I in the wake of the terrible Alaska Airlines crash I started thinking about safety statistics.

I just wonder whether certain days are safer to fly on relative to other days eg is Sunday safer than Tuesday? Does anyone have any statistics on this?

cheers Peter

Interesting question, but speaking of cans of worms...
You could ask the same question for other part of the 'travel experience' such as who do i fly, which equipment do they fly, where to/from/over, did the captain sleep well last night....
It is possible that certain patterns exist. Only two weeks ago researchers here published that Scottish people have a higher chance of dying on a Monday (I won't speculate on the causes here). Maybe the same happens with car accidents or train accidents or nuclear reactor accicents.
I agree, we should not be complacent and ask the questions - maybe someone has an answer, but be careful with the interpretation.

And fwiw: 1999 was one of the safest years on record: see Flight and AW.
Safe travelling

I have heard that odd numbered Tuesdays in months that contain the letter "R" are safest. But only for airlines whose headquarters are East of the Mississippi River. If their headquarters are West of the Mississippi, the safest days are even numbered Thursdays in months which contain an "R" immediately preceeded by a vowel. This is all true unless of course you are flying internationally during a leap year, in which case you have to call Dionne Warwick at Physchic Friends Network to get a personal chart made.

Seriously though, I wonder if control towers are staffed more on certain days than others. Are there more flights in general departing on certain days of the week?

I'm not blamming air traffic control for the accidents that occur at all- just looking at all possibilities.

Imamedic: Staffing levels at ATC centers are pretty much constant on a day-to-day basis (a little lighter on weekends due to less traffic), but levels are dramatically reduced in domestic areas from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. due to lack of traffic.

In the oceanic areas, however, traffic is at its peak during the overnight hours, so they're well staffed at those times.

You could probably run statistics forever and try to draw some conclusions, but in the end, engines and airframes don't know the day of the week.

[This message has been edited by letiole (edited 02-01-2000).]

Equipment may not know the day of the week or the time of the year, but terrorists do. So it's probably a little safer flying on a non-descript day than around holidays, religious or otherwise.

Not that this ever should deter anyone, nor is it even a known fact. Just guessing...

It doesn't look like any day is worse than any other if you look at the NTSB Web site.... http://www.ntsb.gov/aviation/aviation.htm

IMO, the safest day to fly was the evening of December 31, 1999 on American Airlines. Everyone who's anyone in the aviation industry was probably double and triple checking everything to make sure nothing went wrong with the AA flights that carried the FAA administrator from Washington Dallas and San Francisco.

Other than that, its more difficult to determine, as its a combination of weather, equipment, ground and fight crew (fatigue), other passengers (air rage), the controllers (fatigue), air traffic congestion, security (hijack, bomb), and sheer luck. Keep in mind that something in another aircraft can also affect the safety of your aircraft, or ruin a perfect day at home.

Also, ground traffic to and from the airport (crew, passengers, equipment, etc), and foot traffic on the airport grounds can also be hazards...

What I'm trying to say, in a rather strange way, is that if the only problem I've had during today's flight is a few FA's in first class while I'm stuck in the center seat in economy next to a non-stop cougher and a non-stop chatter, yet I can go home to my family at the end of it and maybe log on and file a trip report, it has been a safe day for me.

[This message has been edited by Indurain (edited 02-02-2000).]

It the classic answer to the question:

"How was your flight?"

"Any one I can walk away from...!"

From Air Transportation, Eighth Edition:

"As Robert Serling points out in the concluding paragraph of his book The Probable Cause, if a passenger was born on an airliner and flew continuously during his entire lifetime, he could not expect to be involved in a fatal crash until he reached the age of seventy six years."

"Serling also noted that, based on the accident rate over the past several years, a passenger could fly more than 300 million miles on a certificated U.S. air carrier without being involved in an accident"

Folks, it is still the safest mode of transportation. I am much more fearful of driving in Southern California than flying on any day of the week.

Not much comfort to Alaska 261's unfortunate crew and pax, but that incident has no statistical bearing on your next flight.

That is my $.02 worth.

Unless that hypothetical passenger was on NW, in which case he could live beyond 76 years because the plane still hadn't taken off after pulling back from the gate.

Now now, Jon! Please. After the first year or two, little doubt NW would have "protected" the theoretical pax and gotten them off and onto a flight on another carrier!

We all wonder about how safe it really is to fly - I know...the safest form of travel - but....why is it that it takes a tragedy like the Alaska Airlines crash to correct a problem with an aircraft?

Now that this has happened, we're hearing about the stabalizer system on MD-80's being a fairly frequent problem (American flight returns to Phoenix this week due to this problem, read about another flight - can't recall where - that had a problem with this system on takeoff and had to return to make an emergency landing).

Do you really think that these problems just started on Monday? I expect the problem has been known by the airlines. It's the media that should keep a check on these types of problems and let us - the flying public - know about it.

I think it is inexcusable for the FAA to allow these maintenance problems to exist AT ALL. I don't care how much it costs, when they identify a problem, they should require that it be checked and repaired within a very short time (maybe 18 days, not 18 months which was the directive on the stabilizer problem).

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Traveler113

While public safety needs to come before cost concerns, should the FAA order MD-80s grounded until this apparent problem is remedied, there's good chance Alaska and American airlines would go under, as that would ground much of their fleets. No doubt this is in the minds of the powers that be.

Traveller113:

While I agree in principle that the media should expose life-threatening conditions in any industry, the sad fact is most general media outlets (my experience is TV and print) have no one permanently assigned to the aviation beat. And in a breaking news situation, the reporter who is assigned more often than not knows nothing about aviation and merely serves to spread misinformation. There was a letter a day or two ago in a broadcast industry newsletter that recounted some of the howlers committed by anchors and reporters in the first hours following the Alaska crash.

Sometimes I don't know whether to laugh or cry at this stuff.