ANOTHER AIR CRASH WITH A HAPPY ENDING

Seem to be some conflicting reports here. One source reported there had been one fatality but apparently that's been denied by people on the scene. Listening to the BBC World Service.

I've heard one source and read several others which all state that no one was killed. Apparently, it was said earlier that one person was killed, but Turkish Airline officials are now denying that. With a plane crashing on land, that's pretty amazing. A Turkish official i heard quoted this morning said that there were no fatalities because there was no fire.

Phew.

With knobs on.

It broke into three pieces, and the pictures are chilling . . . when i saw them my first thought was amazement that no one was killed . . .

Apparently, it was news outlets in Turkey which reported a death, and not sources in Holland.

Go here to see an image of the plane on the ground.

Just saw it on TV...looks worse that way.

according to the news here in EU the Turkisch news said all survied, but other news talk about at least five killed and many injured and very badly too.

The reports in the UK are that there have been 9 fatalities and many injuries, some severe.

http://www.radionetherlands.nl/currentaffairs/090225-turkish-plane-crash


Aircraft said to be only 7 years old.

Yes . . . i just came back to say that according to Turkish Airlines, Dutch authorities are saying that nine people are dead. That report says two in the cockpit and seven in the cabin.

I rather regret my title--still, nine dead in this kind of crash is still a very low death toll.

It is.

Let us hope the injured are going to be ok.

Amsterdam is likely a good place to be critically injured in terms of high quality medical services.

Then there's all the trauma related psychological injury.

Sigh.

My first thought when I heard this on the news was that there would likely be many casualties due to the breakup of the plane. (no pictures).

I was amazed when I saw the thread title and the information from news sources that nobody died.

It is still, somewhat amazing that there were not more fatalities. I am very happy about that and hope that not many have serious injuries and are still in peril of death.

Does it seem that we are hearing of more plane crashes lately?

I had actually been thinking that we were hearing of fewer crashes lately--the thing is, whether its your impression or mine, neither of us are making the judgment based on evidence.

The picture is scary--you can see it by clicking on the link above. When i saw the picture the first thought i had was to be amazed that no one was killed (which was what the reports were then). My second thought was surprise that no one in the cockpit was killed.

Still and all, the death toll is low--less than 10%, and in the past it was unusual in this kind of accident for 10% to survive.

I did a bit of checking on the number of worldwide plane crashes in the past few years. I gave no regard to casualties or injuries - just crashes.

2005 - 16
2006 - 10
2007 - 24
2008 - 22
2009 - 4 (YTD including the Amsterdam incident)

Do you have equivalent data on the number of flights per annum? It only becomes significant, really, if one can compare the number of fatalities and injuries to the number of people using air transport. (Which assumes that air transport safety is the issue.)

You are absolutely correct on that. Don't have any data. Will try to find some.

I understand the thought that comparing the number of world-wide flights to crashes can give one a rough idea of the odds of crashing. However, would a more accurate correlation be obtained by comparing the number of crashes to total miles flown world-wide, since their might be a correlation to longer flights and greater odds of a problem? For that matter, if one is concerned about one's safety on a particular trip, would it not be the best statistic to compare number of crashes for that type of trip only (e.g., number of crashes for flying domestically, or number of crashes flying overseas)? And then broken down by season, and within season by day flights, and night flights. Getting into respective weather conditions may not be feasible, since weather affects a flight during take-off, landing, and the flight itself.

And then there is the non-obvious, like whether maintenace was out-sourced, or done by airline personnel.

My point is that there are many variables, and to put one's safety in the simplest of statistics (total flights, versus total crashes, per year) is not the best use of statistical comparisons, I believe. Or, at least a histogram with classes for each criterion, broken down to total flights, versus total crashes for each criterion). Then one can choose a flight with the safest criteria (possibly: summer, day flight, domestic, fair weather, company personnel doing maintenance).

Oh, then there are the variables for the respective take-off and landing airports. That could be a study in itself, perhaps.

Choosing to fly safely is no different, I believe, than handicapping a horse race. The problem is a horse race gives the bettor much information to do an analysis. Not so with flying.