Over the past 12 years, U.S. airlines have accomplished an astonishing feat: carrying more than eight billion passengers without a fatal crash.
Such numbers were once unimaginable, even among the most optimistic safety experts. But now, pilots for domestic carriers can expect to go through an entire career without experiencing a single engine malfunction or failure. Official statistics show that in recent years, the riskiest part of any airline trip in the U.S. is when aircraft wheels are on the ground, on runways or taxiways.
The achievements stem from a sweeping safety reassessment—a virtual revolution in thinking—sparked by a small band of senior federal regulators, top industry executives and pilots-union leaders after a series of high-profile fatal crashes in the mid-1990s. To combat common industry hazards, they teamed up to launch voluntary incident reporting programs with carriers sharing data and no punishment for airlines or aviators when mistakes were uncovered.
This is from Andy Pasztor, “The Airline Safety Revolution,” Wall Street Journal, April 16, 2021. (The print edition is Saturday/Sunday, April 17/18, 2021.) Unfortunately, it’s gated. It’s a tremendous article.
The bio at the end says:
Mr. Pasztor, who is writing a book about the history of air safety, recently retired from The Wall Street Journal, where he covered aviation since the mid-1990s.
I’m guessing this is an excerpt from his forthcoming book.
READER COMMENTS
john hare
Apr 21 2021 at 2:37am
This is a key point. Punishment for honest mistake incentivizes hiding them. More decision makers should be aware of this. When the attitude in a company is “fix the problem” instead of “whose fault is it”, people tend to call out problems much earlier. Key point is that the potential problems are often called out before they become actual problems.
Alan Goldhammer
Apr 21 2021 at 7:43am
One might argue against the quoted statement, witness the case of the Boeing 737 MAX which was grounded for a pretty long time and public confidence sank as well with many travelers opting not to fly on that plane. Is not this a case of Boeing being punished?
john hare
Apr 21 2021 at 2:37pm
On that particular issue, Boeing did not own up to the mistakes until forced to. And to a large degree, it was not an honest mistake in the first place. So I would say it doesn’t apply here on both counts.
Thomas Lee Hutcheson
Apr 21 2021 at 7:10am
Is zero crashes optimal? Zero side effect’s from new drugs is not. Is airline regulation better than food and drug regulation and if so why?
David Henderson
Apr 21 2021 at 10:17am
You wrote:
Good question and I’m glad to see you raise it. The answer is that a goal of zero crashes is not optimal. But if as a result of fairly low cost actions, you get zero crashes, that’s great.
You ask:
I have no idea whether airline regulation is better than food and drug regulation. For small airplanes, FAA regulation is horrendous, which is why when you look around at general aviation at your nearest airport you see the equivalent of cars in Cuba.
David Seltzer
Apr 21 2021 at 10:43am
DH said “But if as a result of fairly low cost actions, you get zero crashes, that’s great.” David, It seems the commercial airlines and their insurers have made that calculation. While they don’t get zero crashes, about 1 in 4 million flights, the costs of redundant systems and the incentive to avoid killing their customers approach Pareto optimality.
Thomas Lee Hutcheson
Apr 21 2021 at 12:39pm
I wonder why we do not see more of this in other kinds of hazards. Why isn’t insurance on structures built in areas subject to wildfires and flooding just too expensive? Why didn’t PG&E’s liability insurers insist on better maintenance of transmission lines on pain of ruinous rates? Ditto those dams that fail.
David Seltzer
Apr 21 2021 at 3:17pm
Thomas, fair questions. “Why isn’t insurance on structures built in areas subject to wildfires and flooding just too expensive?” I suspect it’s because FEMA cross subsidizes insurance premia.
“Why didn’t PG&E’s liability insurers insist on better maintenance of transmission lines on pain of ruinous rates? Ditto those dams that fail.”
My conjecture, Maybe the actuaries were wrong. Or, Black Swans ruin the concept of complete markets.
Mark Barbieri
Apr 21 2021 at 9:56am
I would love to see something similar applied to deaths related to policing – deaths of officers and deaths caused by officers.
David Seltzer
Apr 21 2021 at 10:15am
As a former risk manager, I still calculate probabilities of catastrophic events. If I drive to an airport to take a commercial flight, driving and flying are independent. The probability of dying in a vehicle accident is .00877. The probability of dying in a plane crash is .000,00025. Multiplying both yields the probability of being killed at .000000002. There’s a better chance I’ll be struck by lighting as the odds are about 1 in 1,222,000. p=.000,00082.
Christophe Biocca
Apr 21 2021 at 12:40pm
Maybe I’m missing something but isn’t your calculation giving you the result of dying from both? And the events can’t be independent since dying from one thing precludes dying from the other. You should multiply your odds of survival instead.
In the other direction, these are lifetime risks, and most of the risk from driving is from daily commuting and errands simply because it accounts for the vast majority of miles driven.
I think the conclusion still holds, if you use fatality per passenger-mile probabilities and multiply your chances of survival (as long as your drive to the airport isn’t a 12-hour trek or something ridiculous like that).
David Seltzer
Apr 21 2021 at 3:08pm
Christophe. Good catch. Thanks. You are right. The probability of dying in one precludes death in the other. Dependence without replacement.
The probability of surviving is also dependent. To wit, If I’m to survive a flight depends on surviving the drive to the airport.
Vincent P
Apr 21 2021 at 4:07pm
I, too, read that article this weekend and found it fascinating. Especially since, we recently have taken the “no blame” approach to addressing employee compliance to company policies and government regulations in our business, and have seen positive results.
Being in the food industry, I can say that food regulation is a mess. I don’t even know where to begin. Almost all incidents are self-reported, but there isn’t a mechanism to insure compliance. And information is rarely shared between companies. After reading the article, I saw immediately how this could revolutionize the food industry.
Todd Kreider
Apr 23 2021 at 2:53pm
I’ve read that much of the greatly improved safety record from 2002 is due to much more automation in planes as well as in air traffic control towers.
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