AirTran Airways - The Truth about Safety

Hello all,
Being new to these forums and more of an aircraft buff than a FF buff here is my dubious insight into AirTran's reputation.

Firstly AirTran is safe, it would not be flying if it wasn't. Has AirTran had a few incidents, yes, but who hasn't. People talk about how irresponsible they were back in the ValuJet days, about how Flight 592 (the Everglades crash) was all their fault. They don't maintain their planes, they have old planes and blah blah. Do a few incidents mean that a whole airline is unsafe? Not by a long shot.

So AirTran has some DC9s that are long in the tooth, well so does Northwest. They pay their pilots less than the Bix Six, so do JetBlue, Spirit, Southwest and many others.

Airtran/Valujet has had only one fatal accident in its nearly ten year history. Was the accident their fault? Yes it was but so what, if anything that will make them be more cautious in the future.

Before anyone decides not to fly AirTran because of that one crash 6 years ago I would urge them to remember the story of American Flight 191, a Douglas DC10. In 1979 AA 191 crashed in Chicago killing 279 people. The engine fell off the plane during takeoff. American had been removing the engine and pylon (what holds the engine to the wing) assembly as a unit instead of the Douglas procedure of removing the engine first, then the pylon. By doing this American was saving a lot of money, but they were also setting 279 people up to die.

When people talk about American is the first thing they mention Flight 191? Before flying AA do you take a look at the wing and see if the engine is properly attached? No, because AA is just "percieved" as safe. Yet almost any media reference to AirTran mentions the Valujet crash, why? because it sells papers. Don't buy into the myth that Airtran (or any other airline for that matter) is unsafe, because it isn't.

PS, sorry for such a long post, and no I am not an Airtran employee

ValuJet executives should have been jailed for the experience of 592. Did you know that the aircarft serving that flight had eight incidents in the two years prior where the aircraft either had to abort a takeoff or make an emergency landing?

They will be more cautious? Are you just imagining things to try and create a pretty picture for a company threatening the lives of the traveling public?

What about when they were on their takeoff roll on the runway and another pilot had to radio them that their engine was on fire because the pilot had ignored the warning?

And what about the time that they flew into a hail storm so rough that it cracked their windshield open? They were challenged about it because they weren't supposed to, but then lied about it and were proven to be lying by the FDR.

And what about the time that they recently performed an illegal maintenance procedure on a >30 year old aircraft part that ultimately failed and caused a fire on takeoff?

No, and the reason is because American Airlines has operated an order of magnitude more flights than Airtran
and for decades before the idea of ValuJet was ever conceived.

If you think ValuJet is safe, you either are naive, uninformed, or in denial.

http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/98mar/valujet1.htm
http://www.cnn.com/US/9605/12/crash.record/index.html
http://www.cnn.com/US/9611/20/valujet.update
http://www.ntsb.gov/Publictn/1996/AAR9603.pdf
http://www.iasa.com.au/folders/Break...snippets5.html
http://aviationsafety.net/cvr/cvr_vj597.shtml



[This message has been edited by dbaker (edited 09-12-2002).]

Here's one more:

http://www.2600.com/hackedphiles/val...tml/frame.html

[WARNING: THIS DEFACEMENT IS IN EXTREMELY POOR TASTE, DON'T SAY I DIDn'T WARN YOU!]

A less profane version of the site is available here:

http://www.ityt.com/airtran/hacked.php

"If you think ValuJet is safe, you either are naive, uninformed, or in denial."

I am not an AirTran/ValuJet employee and as a matter of fact I have not flown them. Having said that, I would think that the US aviation regulators or whichever governmental bodies that sees about airline safety would not allow them or any airline to keep flying passengers if they were not "safe" to fly.



[This message has been edited by MyDearMiles (edited 09-12-2002).]

I'm sorry, but that's a naive response. For what it's worth, the FAA did ground the airline for over a month in 1996. They continue to be under investigation. I might note that the government did nothing to stop them from flying the aircraft that served flight 592 that crashed, even though it had 8 accident/incidents in the two years prior. Two of those were on the same day, but were unrelated!

The FAA's oversight relies heavily on the assumption that the operator is attempting to comply with the regulations. When an operator takes short cuts and intentionally tries to avoid detection, the chances of the violations going undetected are fairly good. The FAA simply doesn't have the resources, or funding to develop the resources, that would be necessary to monitor all of the airlines closely enough to reliably detect violations that are being actively concelaed.

To all of you who think that AirTran is the 'Devil's Preferred Carrier':

1. Do you think that flying AirTran is less safe than driving, let's say, ATL-WAS?

2. Do you think that AirTran safety standards and records are below many international airlines, like Swissair (3 fatals in 3 years), Korean Air or China Airlines?

3. Whom should I fly out of ATL and Florida for low fares- Delta or US Airways? Or perhaps I should wait on Gordon Bethune to offer $39 one-ways systemwide??? Southwest simply does not fly to Atlanta.

While I would love to fly on a safer airline than AirTran (Southwest comes to mind), that is very difficult on the eastern seaboard.

What a great country - we have a choice. If you don't like FL - don't fly them. Thats one more seat for everybody else.

But don't compare Airtran to Delta - two different airlines, two different operations. If you don't like Delta - fly airtran, give up those unlimited free drinks in first class and membership to the crown room - its too crowded anyhow when people bring in 4 freeloading guests.

No, but at least when driving, you have some control and know that your vehicle has been maintained correctly so it offers some peace of mind.

I'm not as familar with Swissair/Korean/China to give an answer to this. I wasn't even aware of a recent Swissair crash beyond the 1998 MD-11 incident.

I do know, however, that AirTran has had 170,000 flights, Swissair has had 3.2M, KoreanAir has had 1.3M, and China Airlines has had 690,000.

Do the math.

I fly to ATL on CO, so I don't really know much about flying out of there. I would say that paying the premium for DL/CO/US is certainly worth it when it comes to your safety.

My point is to make people aware of their history and their current status and safety issues. The vast majority of people flying AirTran likely aren't even aware that it's the same company as ValuJet.

I'm not complaining about AirTran for the sake of complaining about an airline that I fly constantly (which is a popular pasttime on FT).

I fly AirTran weekly, and get 2 free drinks per segment, no fight to sit up front, and usually an empty seat next to me. I'll take that over the alternative, but hey, that's why one airline is breaking even and one is not even close.

The Swissair crashes:

In 2000, Zurich-Dresden on a Saab turboprop- all (10) killed.

In 2001, Berlin-Zurich on an Avro RJ-100: 24 killed.

And the Murder-11 crash over the Atlantic, of course...

Where does the idea that AirTran is unsafe come from?? It comes from the media who are the most subjective and misleading resource on airline safety there is. CNN, MSNBC et al will do anything to get viewers and one of the tings they do is create an overly unrealistic portrayl of how "unsafe" it is to fly. They do this because they know people will buy into their bogus stories.

Airtran has a fatal accident rate of 5.88 per million flights. That means that the chance of any given Airtran flight is about 1 in 175,000. You would have to take 175,000 flights before you were involved in a fatal crash. Think about that.

Yet CNN and ABC are lighting up the airwaves with stories about how Airtran planes are winged coffins. They are creating a moral panic and it is shameful. Even more suprising is that people believe this. They see morons like John Norris and Mary Sciavo screaming about how Airtran or the Dc9 are deathtraps, just to get their faces on TV.

So fly Airtran, fly Korean, fly a Swiss MD11 (murder 11, i like that) and fly them knowing that you are several orders of magnitude safer than you were in the TownCar that took you to the airport.

Cheers
Jesse