Another day, another plane crash.
As morbid as it may sound, that’s starting to feel like the truth. Everywhere you turn in recent years there seems to be news about yet another plane tragically descending toward the ground. Today’s headlines about the “miracle” crash in Colombia — one death among 125 passengers and six crew members — is just the tip of the iceberg. After all, just days ago, on Aug. 9, former U.S. Senator Ted Stevens was killed when a small plane he was aboard crashed in Alaska. And his fatal flight was in addition to another fatal Alaskan accident and the death of 14 passengers on a Russian plane earlier this month. It’s almost as if “Final Destination” has been turned to repeat as flight-related incidents become increasingly reported.
Out of curiosity, I headed toward Google in search of plane-crash statistics. And after sifting through pages and pages of data and terms I barely understand, here is what I’ve sort of gathered:
- The number of U.S.-based crashes — both “general aviation” and civilian flights — decreased from 2008 to 2009, according to the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB). Fatalities also decreased. However, these notes, as written in an April 2010 press release, were about all the information I could really summarize because their tables are ridiculously confusing.
- PlaneCrashInfo.com reports more than 51 crashes in 2009 alone (I counted through a list though I am unsure what type of crafts they specifically note). Sixty-three in 2008, 54 in 2007 and 51 in 2006. Now, on this same site, you look back a decade or two and you find that there were 76 crashes in 2000 and 72 in 1990. So why exactly does it feel as though the news today is littered with these events when they were, obviously, more abundant in years past?
- The Geneva-based Aircraft Crashes Record Office (ACRO) shows similar results — though they solely count vessels which contain six-or-more people. They note that 1918 had the fewest number of crashes at only 18. Though one must consider that was toward the inception of air travel, so 18 could potentially be quite high. The year 2009 appeared somewhere in the middle at 127 crashes, with each of the 2000s coming toward the latter half of the listing, showing significantly fewer incidents than the record 528 in 1943.
- Even looking more closely at a particular month, 2010 seems to be on the decline for failing flights. The NTSB noted a decrease in U.S. Civil Aviation flight disasters in June 2009 and June 2010 (170 to 152) as well as 11 fewer general aviation accidents (166 to 145). Though June 2010 unfortunately marked a midair collision, which 2009 did not.
So what does all of that babble mean?
Well, if you ask me — and you must be considering you’re still reading and I’ll be shocked if that’s the case as I assume this only interests me for some crazy, insane reason – it shows that these incidents are bizarrely attracting more media attention than they did in previous years. Why else would it continually feel as though crash after crash, collision after collision, was occuring? The only fathomable explanation is an increase in news exposure (so I believe).
Perhaps this comes as a result of the undoubtedly most tragic air-related event in American history, Sept. 11. Maybe the media influx is a product of “miracles” that have occasionally popped up, such as this new one in Colombia or last year’s “Miracle on the Hudson.” Or all of this is possibly my own perception and these items have been reported just as often in former decades, yet as my 20s emerged, I only then began to realize it*…
Whichever reason this turns out to be, I know at least myself and one of my coworkers have noticed a change. Considering all the data points toward fewer flight disasters recently than throughout the years since Orville and Wilbur Wright first lifted off the ground, the only logical notion is some unexplained shift that thrusts more of these dreadful incidents into the spotlight. But what could that be? ::Shrugs:: I wish I knew.
* This is entirely plausible, in which case, I just spent way too much of my life researching plane crashes.
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
My theory? Page views and ratings. Period.
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I think that it’s just all the news channels need something to fill up the time between the times that they are praising or bashing Obama & the administration (depending on the slant of your news channel). It just seems that there are more crashes because we hear more about them. 20 years ago there most people got their news from the 6:00 local & network news, or maybe CNN, and papers. A plane crash with 10 people on board would get little pub due to limited time on the news or get buried in the paper as “not that important”.
Now, the thing that really seems to be going up (just based on how often you can hear it in the news & not bothering to check actual stats, if there even are any to be easily found) is how often that we hear about a car/truck.etc. running into a house or other building. Seems like almost every night or 2 there is another one in the news. Then again, it probably is the same as plane crashes.
Either that, or the world really is coming to an end
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Mindy Reply:
August 17th, 2010 at 10:44 am
@Joseph, End of the world seems to make the most sense… Ha. I actually haven’t heard much about vehicles crashing into homes though. Maybe it’s a DC-area thing?
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I don’t think that you’re far off, as I think that an increase in the sheer amount of available information, and an increase in one’s own awareness are both factors; however, I also think that it’s important to consider how low those numbers are in comparison, because it’s possible that the reason we hear so much about plane crashes is that air travel is actually becoming safer. The crashes are increasingly anomalous, so they draw attention. The things that get news coverage, get it because they are unusual. But again, it’s likely a mix of all of the aforementioned reasons.
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Mindy Reply:
August 17th, 2010 at 10:45 am
@Leonnie, Excellent point though. As air travel continues to advance, so does its safety measures, making a plane crash that much more unusual. I hadn’t thought of that one.
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I’m so glad I’m not the only nerd out there who does research just for the sake of learning something new. : )
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Devon Sawa…haven’t thought about him in ages.
I think you may be right about the Hudson and 9/11 connections, I don’t know.
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I knew I had something more substantive to say, but I forgot until just after I hit “submit.”
I remember hearing about the OKC Bombing from my mom that evening and thinking I should have turned on the radio when I got home from school (I was in 6th grade). I would turn on the radio every afternoon for months (years?), expecting to hear about a plane crash or other terrible event. It was what I was expecting, and in some ways, wanting.
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