This App Tells You The Probability Of Your Plane Crashing
'Rational expectations' is a term commonly thrown around by economists trying to work out why people do stuff. It's based on the idea that individuals weigh up the pros and cons of a certain action, and use that to make a decision. It's one of the fundamental underpinnings of a free market economic model, but as this app proves in miniature, it's also bullshit.
'Am I Going Down' is a pretty simple app: given your departure, destination, airline and aircraft of choice, it spits out the odds of your plane turning into a fiery wreck. It's meant to put nervous fliers at ease, thanks to the astronomic odds (one in 5.4 million for my last transatlantic flight) of crashing.
The app, built by London-based Vanilla Pixel, uses data from accident archives and flight records from the NTSA and International Civil Aviation Organization, among others. The statistical method seems sound, although there's no accounting for things like rogue state-backed separatists with surface-to-air missiles.
More than just being a $0.99 novelty, though, 'Am I Going Down' is a good case study in human irrationality. Most nervous flyers are probably dimly aware that they're at far greater risk driving or walking or shovelling snow, but there's something emotionally terrifying about plane crashes that captures our imagination.
Now we just need to make a probability app for the anti-vaxxers. [iTunes]
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Most nervous flyers are probably dimly aware that they're at far greater risk driving or walking or shovelling snow, but there's something emotionally terrifying about plane crashes that captures our imagination.
It's about exposure to risk and being in an inherently unnatural-feeling situation. Most people don't fly every day. The ones who do tend to view it no differently than getting on a bus. But if you only fly once a year or even less (as most people do), it's going to potentially be a more nerve-wracking experience. Factor in our fairly natural and rational fear of heights, and it all becomes easy to understand.
Hell, if you took someone who's never been in a car before and put them on an interstate going 75mph, they'd probably get freaked out also.
For me it's a couple things. I'm more likely to have an accident in a car but with the type of car I drive, there's a VERY small chance I'll die or be seriously injured in the accident. Now there's a much lower chance I'll be in a plane crash...but an exponentially higher chance I'm dead when it happens. I.e. Give me a more probable event that I walk away from rather than a rarer event I wont. Then there's the feeling that you're in control when driving a car. Even if it's an illusion, I'd rather have the illusion that I'm in control in a car than the certainty I'm not in control in a plane. I have some impact on my fate in a car, whether that be swerving to avoid an on coming car or choosing to go a little slower. I have some agency in that situation. In a plane, when something bad happens, I'm just a pile of flesh in a metal tube waiting for it to end, screaming against the uncaring forces of physics.
Yeah, oddly, when I started flying more frequently, that's when I got more nervous about it, and I've flown to four continents as well as tons of 2-hr commuter flights. I had a lot of time to think about just the precariousness of the situation of being in a heavier-than-air vehicle. And my mind is one of those types that will tease out the scenarios, rational and not.
On one hand, flying is incredibly safe, on the other, if something does go wrong, you're in a 500mph thin aluminum tube hanging out in a place that would instantly kill you if you were exposed to it. In many respects it's the speed I worry about.
Also, as a technologist, I've spent a lot of my career thinking about redundancy and single points of failure. If I could design a plane, I would add a few tweaks for better safety, even if the stats would show it's not a good bang for the buck. But then I'm also a person who thinks about this for cars as well. I don't understand why we have so many traffic deaths when so many are preventable and so many are deliberate*.
*in the sense that people willingly engage in high-risk behavior behind the wheel, which if eliminated would drop traffic deaths by 75% or more.
Except that you're STILL many, MANY orders of magnitude more likely to die in even the safest car than in a plane.
We all know what the problem is : if the plane crashes you are dead. It's an all or nothing situation, no escape, just imprisonment in a metal box towards death. That's the source of the anxiety : complete lack of control.
I'm sure control also plays a part in it. We all tend to think we can Andretti our way out of a bad driving situation but stepping on a plane requires you to put your trust into pilots, security agents, mechanics, air traffic controllers and more.
Agree, I've been on commercial flights where I realized the crew was doing something stupid or unnecessary, usually trivial, but one time was actually a bit dangerous.
Perhaps, but are those same people scared of being a passenger in a car? Not only are you not in control, the person who is in control almost certainly isn't a highly trained professional as in planes. Granted some people are scared of being car passengers, but I would wager that's a much much smaller number of people than those scared of flying.
Great thanks.
About to head out the door for a flight on a smallish plane and the wind is gusting at about 50mph.
That being said, I don't want to pay .99 for it to tell me I am going to die, I'll take it like a gentleman, grabbing everyone else's oxygen masks.
r.i.p.
So if I'm on a plane and the app says there is a high probability that it will crash, am I legally authorized to freak out?
If it says everything is fine, but my plane crashes, do I get a refund?
I need to know these things!!
It's one of the fundamental underpinnings of a free market economic model, but as this app proves in miniature, it's also bullshit.
You sir, deserve all the drinks! Fan-damn-tastic!
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