

Countries where flying is dangerous - somberi
http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2015/08/aviation-safety

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dagurp
> Overall, airplanes are a remarkably safe means of travel. Even on carriers
> registered in highly mountainous and desperately poor Nepal, which truly is
> one of the most dangerous countries in the world to fly in, just one out of
> every 60,000 passengers has died in aviation accidents since 2000.

Wouldn't it make more sense to measure in number of crashes per flights
instead of number of passengers?

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Asbostos
That would make small countries look unfairly safer because of their shorter
flights. Maybe deaths per passenger-kilometer? Unless the duration of the
flight doesn't really affect the risk.

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thesumofall
The duration of the flight can be ignored. Almost all accidents happen during
take-off or landing which is why statistics usually refer to the number of
passengers.

Edit: Data to back it up: [http://www.1001crash.com/index-page-statistique-
lg-2-numpage...](http://www.1001crash.com/index-page-statistique-
lg-2-numpage-3.html)

~~~
wlesieutre
On the other hand, the risk of driving from New York to Boston is drastically
different from the disk of driving New York to LA. So if you want to make a
safety comparison between different transit systems, looking at deaths per
passenger mile makes sense for the big picture.

But if all you're looking at is the risk per flight like this, it's like you
said, takeoff and landing are where crashes happen regardless of distance.

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LanceH
If I have to move my piano 120 feet down the street, cars are considerably
safer than planes.

It's very difficult to compare miles traveled. Even when comparing a cross
country trip, how safe am I driving if I come anywhere close to US airline's
safety standards: very well maintained car, never drive tired, avoid bad road
conditions, etc...?

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alextgordon
There's also the climate. Indonesia is one of the rainiest places in the
world.[1] It's not just more dangerous to fly through, the constant heavy rain
accelerates deterioration of the aircraft, requiring more frequent and
diligent maintenance. They are boats that fly.

[1] [http://www.climate-charts.com/images/world-rainfall-
map.png](http://www.climate-charts.com/images/world-rainfall-map.png)

~~~
tired_man
You don't even want think about what happens to a helicopter in a sudden
torrential downpour. It's not a pleasant experience even if you can walk away
from it.

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microcolonel
I think the natural log scale imparts a bias to the "The rich are different"
chart.

Most countries are in the "rich" blob there, and there are very few outliers.

There are also extremely rich outliers with (comparatively) large numbers of
airfare deaths.

As noted by another commeter, Indonesia receives tremendous amounts of
rainfall, with well-documented consequences for aircraft and flights.

All-told, I think the way the data are presented in this article is not
suitable for making conclusive statements like "it's dangerous to fly in
$PLACE".

~~~
cpncrunch
I'm not sure if being rich has anything to do with it. I think it probably has
more to do with the type of flying. Even though they talk about "airlines",
the stats are really just for "scheduled air services" as far as I can tell.
Indonesia has a huge number of scheduled air taxi services compared to
countries like the USA, Canada or Europe. So it would be more fair to compare
the stats with the air taxi operators in rich countries, which have a much
poorer safety record. There's a big difference between landing a two-crew 737
on a 2 mile runway with a Cat III ILS and SOPs, and a 250 hour wonder landing
a bush plane on the side of a mountain.

Look up "worst place to be a pilot" on youtube.

