Madrid plane crash - are you still happy to fly?

[Gangle]

Hate flying anyway but after this latest crash am seriously doubting whether to get on a plane. We're supposed to be flying to Jerez this afternoon with DS, five months, and absolutely terrified, mainly for him. Feel so irresponsible, taking him on a plane when I'm not sure it's safe. Has anyone else cancelled their hols because they're too scared to fly? Always hated take off, even more so now.

Two words

'RESCUE REMEDY'

beats vodka every time and you can still take care of your dc's

Mosschops: at the risk of going into territory that the OP may not want to go into, I think the 5-10 minutes of knowing you're falling to your death is also part of the phobia. Given that of the tiny number of accidents which do happen, the majority happen on take-off or landing, you certainly wouldn't have more than a few seconds to think about it. More interestingly, the odds on surviving a commercial plane crash are actually about 60% these days so even if your plane was one of the miniscule minority which had an accident, you'd still have a better than evens chance of being okay.

the argument between cars/trians/buses/donkeys/airplanes is irrelevant becasue generally this kind of fear is irrational. IMO the fear of air travel relates more to the lack of control you have a passenger (in a car even if you are a passenger/driver you probably have significantly less control ovr an accident than you like to think) and the relative strangeness of the experience.

Air travel is IMO safer because:

1 -pilots are far far better trained than drivers
2 - planes are far far better maintained that casr
3 - proportionately there are fewer planes in the sky than there are cars on the road.

cestlavie, I agree, I did say earlier that the numbers of catastrphic plane crashes are very small given the amount of air traffic there is.
I was just referring to the car/plane argument that people always use when youre frightened of flying, which just never works, or at least it never made me feel better

baed on data between 1975 and 1994, the death risk per flight was one in seven million.

Dr. Barnett of MIT compared the chance of dying from an airline accident versus a driving accident, after accounting for the greater number of people who drive each day. He found you are nineteen times safer in a plane than in a car

SHall I repeat that:

after accounting for the greater number of people who drive each day. He found you are nineteen times safer in a plane than in a car

He also said:

"roughly speaking, if you were to board a jet flight at random every day, it would take 26,000 years on average before you succumb to a major crash."

(I haven't checked his maths)

While I agree with Kewcumber (you are always right [suck up emoticon]), I was slightly troubled to read that Ryanair are threatening to put it on pilots' disciplinary records if they request more than a certain amount of spare fuel. The excess amount that they usually have is about 10 minutes extra flying time, but if they expect headwinds or bad weather then pilots are supposed to take on extra fuel to allow for it. Ryanair are trying to discourage it to keep costs and weight down. I think pilots are well-trained and responsible and hate the idea of money men trying to second guess them on safety issues.

Mind you, I hate flying with Ryanair anyway and will only do it if I need to get to an airport that only they fly to. My brother's friend used to be a pilot for them and left because he didn't like the work conditions or their sharp practice.

there have been 52 million flight starting in Europe in the last 20 years and only 13 fatal incidents, a fatal incident in an accident where at least one person is killed.

No amount of manipulating the statistics is going to turn that into a high risk activity like having unprotected sex or eating donuts.

I'd be happy to fly if it weren't such a gigantic pain in the arse: all that security crap to put up with, tiny seats, stale and rank air, delays, etc.

It's uncomfortable and a nuisance is why I don't do it.

can't argue with that expat - spent my life on a plane for nearly 10 years (flying almost every week) - glad to be shot of it.

That's so true expat it is really unpleasant, and there must be multiples more people dying from secondary effects of flying (clots, viruses caught from other passangers, heart attacks brought on by stress etc) than die in actual accidents.

ah but skimpy fuel keeps the pilots on thier toes and their reactions sharp Bran

you're more likely to catch a virus on the tube BRan as the air isn't filtered (though I always seem to get a cold after flying its more likely to do with dehydration of nassal passges making you more liable, I susepct)

Just popping in to say that despite my name, I blardy hate flying

So no, Madrid or not, nobody would get me up in one of those glorified toilet roll tubes for love or money.

True bran, although on the other hand the number of people injured or seriously injured whilst flying each year is probably a miniscule fraction of those injured whilst on the roads.

Kewcucumber, perhaps whilst not directing the OP's attention to it you might want to look here, which is a study on transport safety by the European Union... after adjusting for passenger hours, versus only kilometres as in the MIT study, the risks are slightly more comparable (ahem).

Yes Kewcumber, and if you are about to drop out of the sky because of lack of fuel then you get to queue-jump the holding pattern as well.

According to the FT since the oil prices went up there has been a three-fold (guessing wildly at the actual figure here) increase in emergency requests to land because of shortage of fuel at London airports.

it's really a nuisance since all those fucking hijackers. i curse them to hell just for turning it all into such a nuisance, i truly do.

That was a very badly constructed sentence - obviously I meant that there was an increase in emergency requests to land at London airports because of shortage of fuel. As far as I know there is plenty of fuel at the actual airports.

I hate hate hate flying. Was OK until I had kids. Really hated a short 2 hr flight last year, I was ill and vomitted most the way in the loo. I remember feeling guilty about taking my kids on the plane and entrusting them to the pilot. It just seems so scary to me, being that far up in the air. I agree with Mosschops, for me it is about the fear of watching your kids horror and the time you know what is happening, that's how I feel, the fear, panic, screaming, etc for thousands of feet. I also am nervous when driving, esp on motorways, although not as much. I would not want to fly again tbh and would prob drive abroad next time, for now I am quite happy to stay in the UK.

Ooh bran - I sometimes have to fly Ryanair to City of Derry (just did it with DS3, actually) - don't like the sound of these sharp practices, particularly as we had to circle round City of Derry for about 10 minutes because the train was passing by .

In the UK some organisation (probably the BAA) has the authority to compel an airline to submit to having it's planes weighed everytime they land in the country and they haven't started doing that to Ryanair yet so perhaps the fuel situation isn't completely reckless. I do feel that pilots should be able to have whatever safety margin they feel necessary.

I remember when BAA had a period of compulsorarily weighing Malaysian Airlines planes because they were suspected of flying 'light', and I still fly with them when I can't pursuade DH to fly Singapore Air.

Kewcumber - re viruses on the tube, I expect my theory holds true there too, that there are many more people killed by something that they caught on the tube than are killed in tube accidents. My gut feeling is that you are more likely to catch something on a plane though as the air on the tube is turned over faster and you don't spend as long on the tube with a sick person as you would on a long haul flight.

we flew back from Spain the day after the Madrid crash. I felt it was probably the safest day to fly, as no chances would be taken (ok,might be flawed logic but it worked for me). The scarey thing about air crashes is that the chances of survival are very slim - but I fly a lot and don't worry about it as they are very rare.

bran - do you know how close I was to someone with bubonic plague on the district line this morning for 45 mins!?

Kew - most normal people change carriages to avoid nutters and the bubonic plague.