Only ONE in 8,000,000 die in aviation mishaps
I will be going to LA next month for Anime Expo as there will be some Japanese guests I have to tend to and the company that is sending me there is trying to arrange for my flight over. I originally wanted to go with MAS which I think has the most comfortable seats and the best in-flight entertainment system, but now they tell me they want to book it through JTB (Japan Travel Bureau). I just hope they go for the more established airlines than opt for a cheaper choice.
I have been on too many flights in my lifetime that I no longer experience the anxiety pre-takeoff but I've also had the luxury of traveling on well-known-to-be-very-safe airlines that I'd rather fly with one I am used to. Now that I still don't know which airline I am entrusting my life to, I decided to check around for an airline accident rating of some sort and stumbled upon this site.
PlaneCrashInfo.com It is actually a pretty interesting site with photos of crashes dating back to the first airplane fatality in 1908! It also has a list of famous deaths caused by plane crashes for the whole of the past century. One page that I found of utmost interest is the one with MP3s of cockpit warning sounds you can download. Of course you would have to be sitting really close to the cockpit and possess super-hearing to be able to make use of the extra knowledge gained after downloading those MP3s.
On the crash statistics page it says that the probability of a passenger being killed on a single flight is approximately 8 million to 1. It also claims, "If a passenger boarded a flight at random, once a day, everyday, it would statistically be over 21,000 years before he or she would be killed." Cool, and actually very nice to know.
After reading about the "Unusual Accidents" they have listed on that site, I am happy that airports now have strict rules and long thorough security checks. The amount of people who would blow a plane up just to collect insurance $$$ back then!!! And I am pretty sure that many would still do it if it was that easy to smuggle a makeshift dynamite on board. If a sane man could ram a 2-tonne truck into pedestrians on the road ala Grand Theft Auto and then proceed to stab them to death without feeling any remorse, I am sure it's possible for one of the same kind to blow a plane up just as easily.
They even have a page filled with last words from the cockpit and MP3s of air traffic control tapes. But that is not something I'd like to delve into. Whoever this webmaster is, he really did his research for his site. It's crazy.
I have been on too many flights in my lifetime that I no longer experience the anxiety pre-takeoff but I've also had the luxury of traveling on well-known-to-be-very-safe airlines that I'd rather fly with one I am used to. Now that I still don't know which airline I am entrusting my life to, I decided to check around for an airline accident rating of some sort and stumbled upon this site.
PlaneCrashInfo.com It is actually a pretty interesting site with photos of crashes dating back to the first airplane fatality in 1908! It also has a list of famous deaths caused by plane crashes for the whole of the past century. One page that I found of utmost interest is the one with MP3s of cockpit warning sounds you can download. Of course you would have to be sitting really close to the cockpit and possess super-hearing to be able to make use of the extra knowledge gained after downloading those MP3s.
On the crash statistics page it says that the probability of a passenger being killed on a single flight is approximately 8 million to 1. It also claims, "If a passenger boarded a flight at random, once a day, everyday, it would statistically be over 21,000 years before he or she would be killed." Cool, and actually very nice to know.
After reading about the "Unusual Accidents" they have listed on that site, I am happy that airports now have strict rules and long thorough security checks. The amount of people who would blow a plane up just to collect insurance $$$ back then!!! And I am pretty sure that many would still do it if it was that easy to smuggle a makeshift dynamite on board. If a sane man could ram a 2-tonne truck into pedestrians on the road ala Grand Theft Auto and then proceed to stab them to death without feeling any remorse, I am sure it's possible for one of the same kind to blow a plane up just as easily.
They even have a page filled with last words from the cockpit and MP3s of air traffic control tapes. But that is not something I'd like to delve into. Whoever this webmaster is, he really did his research for his site. It's crazy.