Gates9"Pilot had to dive aggressively to avoid midair collision over Burbank airport."
Don’t planes have seatbelts? How did so many people manage to fly out of their seats?
Also friendly reminder to everybody that planes are still the safest mode of transportation by a significant margin
AeonFelisThey have seatbelts, but for the most of the flight they are unused - you only need to buckle in during takeoff, landing, and if when encountering turbulence.
I guess there wasn’t enough time to get all the passengers to fasten their seatbelts before the collision?
Where I fly they also always advise to remain fastener regardless of no immediate warnigs. Exactly for situations like this - and others.
theneverfoxYeah, but people are still going to be using the bathrooms and such, even if you assume everyone actually obeys the rules
Of course, but it should be the 2-4 people who are actively going somewhere / in the bathroom, everyone else should have their seatbelt on.
And airplanes shouldn’t be in each other’s airspace
I don’t know what you’re trying to say, the airplanes nearly running into each other is the clear problem
There are things you can control and things you can’t. I can’t keep the planes out of each other’s airspace, but I can keep my seat belt on.
That would be more insightful if I wasn’t a pilot…
Tap for spoilerI’m not.
Yeah, that’ll keep you from getting slammed on the ceiling…in a situation that should never, ever happen. Which I’d over a midair collision, in which case you’re just screwed no matter what you do
I don’t blame the pilot either, they did their job properly. It was the military that failed to coordinate with the civilian air control tower, which also could have been avoided if the civilian tower had radar
What should you do? Demand better. Not think “I would have been fine, they must’ve been stupid”
You can’t protect against every freak event, what you can do is be one drop in the wave that demands competence from our government
There are certainly things that can be done better. My instance should give an idea about how much my government can do about this problem. That said, just like in a car, there is no good reason you shouldn’t be wearing your seat belt most of the time. And there are plenty of situations they can’t fix, such as clear-air turbulence. But the seat belt still helps.
It applies to everyone - you’ve had an event this year too. I should have said our governments
Air traffic control is just not an individual thing. Not even an individual country thing.
And I’m aware of unexpected turbulence…I just don’t see getting banged about that big a deal. Shit happens. Wrong place, wrong time… Sure, put on your seatbelt when you’re sitting down, but even if you don’t you’re probably not going to die from it
But planes nearly colliding? Actually colliding? That should never happen… It’s a 3D arena, the sky is huge. Planes should neither fall apart nor be anywhere near each other without coordination
We made air travel very safe with old technology, for a long time too. This is a very recent problem, and totally unacceptable
And I’m aware of unexpected turbulence…I just don’t see getting banged about that big a deal. Shit happens. Wrong place, wrong time… Sure, put on your seatbelt when you’re sitting down, but even if you don’t you’re probably not going to die from it
“J. E. Littlewood, a mathematician at Cambridge University, wrote about the law of truly large numbers in his 1986 book, “Littlewood’s Miscellany.” He said the average person is alert for about eight hours every day, and something happens to the average person about once a second. At this rate, you will experience 1 million events every thirty-five days. This means when you say the chances of something happening are one in a million, it also means about once a month. The monthly miracle is called Littlewood’s Law.” - David McRaney
This is why people build houses in flood zones. What are the odds this will affect me? And every year, people gamble with those one in a million odds, and someone loses. Then their friends console each other at the funeral that it was a freak accident and who could have predicted it would happen? And why were they in that position? Because people don’t have an intuitive grasp of statistics, particularly low probability and high frequency, and what the are odds it will happen to them. But it’s happening to someone all the time, and much more likely to the one who says, “Well, it probably won’t be me.”
I don’t think you get what I’m saying.
If you build your house in a flood zone… Well, I feel for you. That sucks, but I’m not going to lose sleep over it
If the state is cutting taxes to incentize building in a flood plain (which is a thing that has happened), in going to be very upset
Okay, I see what you’re saying there. I don’t agree with the stance for the first part, but that’s a personal choice. After all, the government could not only not incentivize building in a flood zone, they could make it illegal.
Uriel238 [all pronouns]Check out John Oliver’s take on air traffic control on LWT
I was a kid when Reagan fired all the striking air traffic controllers. It turns out it takes a long time to train them, so we haven’t recovered from that one incident. It also means all ATCs are overworked, still underpaid and using outdated hardware and methods.
Air travel was screwed even before Trump defunded the FAA.
Fair, but it has gotten very noticably worse based on Trump’s deregulation catching up on the aircrafts and the latest round of forcing out air traffic control
Also, I didn’t know you could just say “all pronouns”. I like that a lot, I’m really uncomfortable putting myself in boxes and that describes my preferences very succinctly
TBH I was in theater as a kid and TTRPGs as a teen and young adult, so it was super easy to get comfortable whatever pronouns suited my character. And yeah, embraced my enby status as I got past my forties.
I can’t argue with that. I think we’re on the same page
On pronouns… Honestly I just don’t want to be called it. Anything else, call me what feels natural. I feel shackled, I just want to be who I am at any given time without pretending or forcing myself to meet gender expectations
I feel like I should’ve been a theatre kid, but they were mean to me so I did sports, my teammates always had my back