Comment on "Pilot had to dive aggressively to avoid midair collision over Burbank airport."
GreyEyedGhost@lemmy.ca 11 hours agoThere are things you can control and things you can’t. I can’t keep the planes out of each other’s airspace, but I can keep my seat belt on.
That would be more insightful if I wasn’t a pilot…
Tap for spoiler
I’m not.
theneverfox@pawb.social 8 hours ago
Yeah, that’ll keep you from getting slammed on the ceiling…in a situation that should never, ever happen. Which I’d over a midair collision, in which case you’re just screwed no matter what you do
I don’t blame the pilot either, they did their job properly. It was the military that failed to coordinate with the civilian air control tower, which also could have been avoided if the civilian tower had radar
What should you do? Demand better. Not think “I would have been fine, they must’ve been stupid”
You can’t protect against every freak event, what you can do is be one drop in the wave that demands competence from our government
GreyEyedGhost@lemmy.ca 8 hours ago
There are certainly things that can be done better. My instance should give an idea about how much my government can do about this problem. That said, just like in a car, there is no good reason you shouldn’t be wearing your seat belt most of the time. And there are plenty of situations they can’t fix, such as clear-air turbulence. But the seat belt still helps.
theneverfox@pawb.social 8 hours ago
It applies to everyone - you’ve had an event this year too. I should have said our governments
Air traffic control is just not an individual thing. Not even an individual country thing.
And I’m aware of unexpected turbulence…I just don’t see getting banged about that big a deal. Shit happens. Wrong place, wrong time… Sure, put on your seatbelt when you’re sitting down, but even if you don’t you’re probably not going to die from it
But planes nearly colliding? Actually colliding? That should never happen… It’s a 3D arena, the sky is huge. Planes should neither fall apart nor be anywhere near each other without coordination
We made air travel very safe with old technology, for a long time too. This is a very recent problem, and totally unacceptable
GreyEyedGhost@lemmy.ca 7 hours ago
“J. E. Littlewood, a mathematician at Cambridge University, wrote about the law of truly large numbers in his 1986 book, “Littlewood’s Miscellany.” He said the average person is alert for about eight hours every day, and something happens to the average person about once a second. At this rate, you will experience 1 million events every thirty-five days. This means when you say the chances of something happening are one in a million, it also means about once a month. The monthly miracle is called Littlewood’s Law.” - David McRaney
This is why people build houses in flood zones. What are the odds this will affect me? And every year, people gamble with those one in a million odds, and someone loses. Then their friends console each other at the funeral that it was a freak accident and who could have predicted it would happen? And why were they in that position? Because people don’t have an intuitive grasp of statistics, particularly low probability and high frequency, and what the are odds it will happen to them. But it’s happening to someone all the time, and much more likely to the one who says, “Well, it probably won’t be me.”