[shriek]

Because the chance of you dying when something goes wrong in an aircraft at high altitude is significantly higher (almost 100%) than you dying in a car crash. There's still a chance of you getting ambulance on road accidents but you're plummeting to your death on major aircraft malfunction.

[mulmen]

> Because the chance of you dying when something goes wrong in an aircraft at high altitude is significantly higher (almost 100%) than you dying in a car crash.

It isn't though. Airliners have suffered in-flight engine explosions and decompressions multiple times since 2001 without fatalities. The last time a structural failure of an aircraft resulted in a crash was in 2000 and it was a design that entered service in 1959. Modern airliners don't just fall out of the sky. They feature robust designs and highly competent crews.

Cars regularly crash fatally without mechanical failures at all. And that says nothing of the dire state of car maintenance among the general population.

[mannykannot]

> The last time a structural failure of an aircraft resulted in a crash was in 2000 and it was a design that entered service in 1959.

While I agree with your point, if the scope is scheduled airline flights in the USA, AA flight 587 crashed on 2001-11-12; globally, Egypt Air 804 on 2016-05-19. There have also been a few close calls, such as Qantas 32 on 2010-11-04, and collisions can also occur, such as that between BAL flight 2937 and DHL slight 611 on 2002-07-01, and Gol Transportes Aéreos flight 1907 with a business jet on 2006-09-29. And, given the topic is things going catastrophically wrong at altitude, there is AF447 on 2009-06-01.

[csours]

It feels like this should be true, but your chance to survive a serious in-flight mishap are actually really good. Like a 90%+ chance of survival.

How can that be? Very few serious in flight mishaps STAY in the news for more than one day, but proportionally MANY mishaps that lead to death stay in the news.

This incident has juice because it's a Boing 737 series aircraft.

It may be hard to believe what I wrote here, and it would be hard to verify if you just look at the general news. You'll need to look at specialized air transport reporting to see the baseline of major mishaps.

[Angostura]

How many people died in today’s incident? None.