You'll sometimes see this dismissed almost derisively as, "people think they're in control when they're driving, but lack agency while flying, so that's why they fear the latter more."

But that's completely true! Not every driver on the road is at equal risk of a fatal accident. A significant percentage of all fatal accident involve speeding, reckless driving, and/or alcohol consumption, to say nothing of distractions like cell phone usage.

So you do have quite a bit of control on the road and exactly none in the air.

Even "safe" drivers who aren't speeding, driving recklessly, or consuming alcohol are at greater risk of death and injury than on any major U.S. air carrier.

So you do have control, and can put yourself into a safer cohort of drivers, but the best you can do still falls wildly short of the state of aviation safety.

In this age-of-big-data, it seems like you should be able to find data on each traffic fatality for the past ten years. Things like time of day, ages/demographics of drivers, demographics of victims, street address/gps coordinates, make/model of vehicles involved, blood alcohol level of impaired drivers, court determination of responsible party, etc.. Does anyone know where to find this?

You don't have control over drunk-driver-in-heavy-pickup-truck-who-is-browsing-instagram-while-speeding crushing into you on the road.

This isn't an argument about control, it's about safety. Control is completely irrelevant to the absolute probability of dying when taking one form of transportation vs another.

You may be 100% in control of a scenario where you are highly likely to die, and 0% in control of a situation where you could essentially live until you die of natural causes.

In this case, even if you exercise 100% of the control afforded to you by driving a car, you are more likely to die in a car than you are in an airplane.

But, we're seeing fatal issues with one specific company over and over again. Knowing that there is some systemic failure within Boeing must change your priors, no?

What's wrong with pointing that out and being concerned?

> But, we're seeing fatal issues with one specific company over and over again.

We aren't. There were fatal issues with one system (MCAS) on one line of planes. This was addressed, and since then there have been zero fatalities (or injuries) caused by design and/or engineering issues by this manufacturer. Their safety record is not substantially different from that of Airbus (who have their own design issues, IMO, such as non-linked pilot controls which has also contributed toward hull loss and passenger deaths). The MCAS issue was, to be clear, completely inexcusable and both regulator and management heads should have rolled over this. I am not happy with our anemic response to this incident.

And yes, one or two people could have potentially died due to this latest incident. It should be investigated and fixed. Beyond that there are wider aspects of the MBA-ification of Boeing that ought to (and I hope but don't expect will) drive regulatory and business change in this country.

But the fact remains that once the issues with MCAS were resolved, Boeing-designed and -assembled airframes have resumed a track record of safety that eclipses that of any other transportation industry. Again, we can, should, and are expecting that every issue is a learning moment to improve the practices of the industry as a whole.

> Boeing-designed and -assembled airframes have resumed a track record of safety that eclipses that of any other transportation industry.

Could you please share some data to back this claim? For example comparison of the number of technical incidents per airframe in use for Boeing vs Airbus?

Sure.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fatal_accidents_and_in...

You'll note the last time a major carrier in the U.S. experienced a fatality due to an engineering, manufacturing, and/or design error attributable to Boeing was in 1996, when a spark in the center fuel tank in a 747 caused it to explode midair.

Before that, 1994. Then 1991, 1989, and 1988.

We did also see one fatality aboard a 737-700 in 2018, but this was due to an issue with the CFM engine and which isn't attributable to Boeing.

Given this, it's pretty obvious on face value that—however you slice it—flying on a Boeing airframe on a major U.S. carrier is safer than every other form of transportation, including literally just walking. Driving, buses, trains, trams, bicycling, scootering, ziplining, whatever. They're all less safe.

Can't say if you missed this on purpose or by omission but there's a few more after 1994.

From your own source:

The aircraft experienced a contained engine failure with debris penetrating the fuselage; one passenger was partially ejected from the aircraft and later died of her injuries.

This is horrific. Boeing, of course and happened in 2018

I literally addressed this:

> We did also see one fatality aboard a 737-700 in 2018, but this was due to an issue with the CFM engine and which isn't attributable to Boeing.

There is essentially no aviation industry expert who will place this failure at the feet of Boeing and not CFM. That said, the fact that engines are designed to completely contain debris from a failure is wild and speaks to the incredible standard of safety we hold aviation to.

Why should you expect every moment to be a learning moment? Is that true in any circumstance you've ever seen? Is it ok to learn with the blood of others?

> The MCAS issue was, to be clear, completely inexcusable and both regulator and management heads should have rolled over this. I am not happy with our anemic response to this incident.

To be fair Boeing literally fired their CEO because of the MAX fiasco.

“He was CEO from 2015 to 2019, when he was fired in the aftermath of two crashes of the 737 MAX and its subsequent groundings.”

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis_Muilenburg

two planes had to fail due to MCAS before it failed. Now, we've seen a blowout, which never happens, from planes that were also recently designed and produced by Boeing. That's a pattern of poor performance which is ocuring recently. It used to be "if it's not Boeing, I'm not going", which they achieved by being very good at what they do.

Comparing Boeing's performance to other the performance of other industries is also apples to oranges, no? Why not compare Boeing to Airbus? I don't understand what you mean by that argument.

So, what design failures has Airbus suffered as of late? And what's your explanation for the specific hate on Boeing, if it's comparable to airbus?

Sorry to pester, but here you go

https://www.ft.com/content/1588974e-db75-4a02-9aff-deb0b75ed...

Where is this for airbus?

I have concerns, but not enough not to fly.

Everything I do in life is a calculated risk. If you told me my toaster was 3 times as likely to kill me today I would still probably toast my bread knowing that the base rate was already pretty low.

If anything, knowing that all of the headline grabbing incidents has been confined to one product line at one company, and watching the amount of scrutiny they are receiving for it makes me feel safer overall.

> But, we're seeing fatal issues with one specific company over and over again. Knowing that there is some systemic failure within Boeing must change your priors, no?

"systemic failure within Boeing" isn't necessarily inconsistent with "air traffic safety continues to improve". For instance, better pilot training and safety regulations might make flying even safer despite Boeing creating more crashes.