Common Safety Misconceptions in Aviation

Most modern people are quite comfortable – or at least quite familiar with – flying on an airplane. From businessmen to vacationers, groups of relatives to groups of friends, a variety of people find themselves on airplanes every day. Hundreds of different airplane models and different airlines crisscross our skies every week, bound for thousands of different locations. Though a commonly cited statistic suggests that air travel is far safer than ground travel (i.e., driving), many people cannot shake a nagging fear associated, quite reasonably, with being tens of thousands of feet off the ground. This fear has given rise to a number of misconceptions about flying:

Everyone dies in plane accidents! – Not necessarily. While it is true that a plane crash can have a high fatality rate, survival depends on a variety of factors; it is perfectly possible to walk away from an aviation accident.

More planes in the air means more accidents! – Statistics show that, even though the number of flights has more than doubled in the last fifteen to twenty years, the fatal accident rate has not significantly changed, and remains comfortingly low.

Sitting near the front/back/middle of the plane is the safest place to be! – There really is no “safest” seat on an airplane. Accidents involving an airplane occur in a dizzying variety of ways. Survival in any given situation is more dictated by how you respond rather than by where you sit.

I don’t trust those big airlines - flying a smaller airplane/airline is safer! – Not really. Large airlines are usually heavily regulated by the government, particularly the governments of well-established, industrialized countries. Smaller airlines are much less rigidly controlled.

For more information on safety issues in aviation, or to discuss legal options if you have been injured in an aviation-related accident, contact an experienced Racine airplane accident lawyer from Habush, Habush, & Rottier, S.C., at 262-554-6200 today.