It’s understandable that some people have a fear of flying. It does go against our natural environment to be so high up in the air, after all. Yet, while the fear comes from a justified place, it’s mostly out of sync with the actual threats that people face.
Now here’s something you must know – You’re more likely to be injured in the car on the way to the airport than you are to be injured when you’re flying through the air! Yes, you heard me right. Here, we have some death indexes of various modes of transportation of the US (other parts of the world have similar findings). The death index of driving or riding in a car is 453, which means that you are roughly 450 times likely to die from that while travelling the same approximate distance flying through a passenger airline. Indeed, there’s no other form of transport that’s safer than flying.
But why is this case? How has the aviation industry achieved so much safety? Below, we take a look at a few ways how and why aviation safety continues to get better?
Greater Understanding
It’s not as if flying has always been safe. The first people who took to the skies were taking a big risk, and it’s just true that there have been a lot of high profile crashes throughout the history of aviation. The key point is that we’ve learned something from all those accidents. Whereas car accidents are typically down to human error, problems in the sky are typically caused by things that can be rectified once they’re understood. Every accident or near-accident has helped to improve aviation safety because it could be dissected and analyzed.
Improved Engineering
Take a look at a photo of the first-ever plane, and then a photo of the latest planes, and you’ll see a world of difference. Though there have been a lot of high-profile advances made in the past century, perhaps the one that’s had the biggest impact on the world has been the progress made in the engineering field. Airplanes, essentially, are highly-advanced, watertight machines. With the help of companies such as Rapid PSI, aerospace companies are able to get specifically-designed parts that contribute towards creating a flawless plane. Airplanes benefit from increased engineering understanding and more advanced technology that allows them to create a perfect flying machine.
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Warning Systems
There will always be threats in the sky, especially since it’s an area of the globe we don’t know as well (compared to the ground, for example). Though modern planes can handle many potentially dangerous environments, the fact is that they rarely have to, thanks to the many warning systems that are in place. They allow for a better understanding of potential problems with the plane, weather conditions, and so on.
It’s a Priority
Ultimately, the reason why aviation is rightly considered to be the safest way to travel is that it’s a priority for the manufacturers. Rockwell Collins, a leading company providing avionics services reported that it had become more costly to pass the safety tests and certify than developing a system! An aviation company that didn’t take this seriously wouldn’t be in business for very long, after all, especially since it’s an industry with a lot of competition. Safety is also treated with great respect because the general public naturally has doubts about the safety of planes, in a way that they don’t about automobiles (because they view themselves as in control of their car, as opposed to a passenger in the sky).
Lastly, if airplanes weren’t safe in the first place, there would be no aviation industry ! 🤷🏼♂️