I have no issue with flying commercial planes, but I guess I don't trust myself _and_ the smaller planes enough to do this.
RIP Claude, horrible way to die.
Stick and rudder skills aren't that useful with fuel exhaustion and bad weather planning. It's much easier to stay safer in a plane vs motorcycle.
I wish people treated cars and motorcycles properly, especially in the US. Until then, no motorcycles for me either :(
I encourage you to read NTSB accident reports. The work the investigators do and the reports they assemble are unparalleled. There are also good parallels to complex systems in general.
Usually accidents are due to people taking too many risks. Yes it can happen but you can prevent a lot by being a stickler for safety.
And you can put down a GA aircraft in a field easily. When I flew gliders they always taught us to constantly evaluate every field you see as a potential landing site. This behaviour is not focused on enough for powered flying IMO. My instructor would suddenly put his hands over my eyes and say "emergency, where are you putting down right now?" And not having a good answer would have you off the solo list for a week or so. It really helped keeping this in the back of the mind. I've not seen that in powered flying at all.
It's not a safe hobby if you want to have fun flying the plane.
It's like the difference between sports car enthusiasts who are proud of how long their tires and brakes last vs the ones who are proud of how short they last.
I suppose it's a combination of lower maintenance standards and pilot experience, definitely doesn't make me want to hop in a small plane anytime soon.
It can be monotonous and degrading, but commercial air is the safe way to travel.
I agree with OP's sentiment.
Yay, one old bold pilot.
One of my old coworkers was a retired navy captain who used to be an instructor at Top Gun and had hundreds of night carrier landings. He told me that he'd have to be forced at gunpoint to fly on a small general aviation airplane, it's just too dangerous.
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_United_States_Air_Force_B...
June 8: A Gulfstream G200 crashed while landing at La Romana International in the DR, it was on the way to pick up former MLB player Yadier Molina, but it had to make an emergency landing. Both pilots, the only occupants, died.
June 10: A Pakistan Army Aviation Mi-17 helicopter crashed near Muzaffarabad. All 22 on board perished.
June 11: Turkish Airlines Flight TK2430, a Boeing 777-300ER, collided with a ground radar antenna while taxiing to its gate after landing at Antalya Airport when the aircraft turned onto a taxiway too small for 777's. Despite the damage to the aircraft, only 1 of 267 souls aboard were injured.
June 11: United Airlines Flight 1275, a Boeing 737, was delayed after a swarm of bees stuck to its right wing. The pilots decided to take off with the insects still on said wing; they all cleared off once the aircraft got airborne. No bees entered the aircraft and no injuries were reported.
June 11: A Piper PA-36 collided with a tower near Barrelman Airport and crashed. The former president of the National Agricultural Aviation Association (NAAA), Rick Boardman, died.
June 11: A Cirrus SR20 crashed into a house after taking off from Portsmouth, Ohio. Only the pilot was killed, and both occupants of the home escaped uninjured.
June 11: A Zhonglian F-27 light helicopter suffered a tail-boom failure and crashed during a test flight in Jiangsu. The pilot and passenger survived with non life-threatening injuries.
June 12: SriLankan Airlines Flight UL-606, an Airbus A330, had its engine struck by lightning just after takeoff from Colombo International; the plane landed safely and no injuries were reported.
June 13: Singapore Airlines Flight SQ114, a Boeing 737-800, suffered burst tires upon landing at Kuala Lumper International; the plane managed to stop on the runway, and no injuries were reported.
June 13: An Indian Air Force An-32 crashed while attempting to land Jorhat Air Force Base in Assam. 5 of the 6 people on board died, with the co-pilot, as of writing, claimed to have been the only survivor.
June 13: A US Marine Corp F/A-18 Hornet Crashed in Washington State near Rimlock Lake. The pilot safely ejected and survived.
June 14: Two helicopters collided mid-air over Brazil. All six people on board both helicopters perished, including American songwriter and rapper, Oliver Tree.
June 14: A Pacific Aerospace 750XL, N221BN, crashed shortly after takeoff from Butler Memorial Airport in Butler, Missouri. The pilot and 11 skydivers on board perished.
June 14: A Piper PA-28, N15564, crashed shortly after takeoff from Key West, Florida. Initially, 5 people were reported to be on board, but it was found out that only 2 people were; both survived.
June 14: Delta Airlines Flight 2905, a Boeing 737-900, collided with a catering truck at Seattle-Tacoma International; no injuries were reported.
June 15: A Russian Tu-22 bomber crashed in Siberia during a training flight. As of writing, everyone on board has been reported to have ejected and survived.
June 15: A Pakistan Air Force trainer aircraft crashed in Pakistan's Mardan district. As of writing, both of the pilots were killed, and at least three motorists were injured.
June 15: A Van's RV-3A crashed into a cow field about 15 miles north of Lakeland, FL. The pilot was killed.
There were some more in the last three days as well...
However, often if you’re handling things well, loosing an engine isn’t the end of the world.
A lot of accidents happen very close to the ground, at height wear a parachute wouldn’t necessarily be helpful anyway.
A parachute, a great solution for some scenarios, but for many, it’s not going to change the outcome. Such examples would be mid collisions, low altitude spiral dives, fires, or anything related to a shortage of oxygen. You also need to consider that during a lot of accidents, other factors, such as weather might be impacting the decision matrix of the pilot, and that might prevent them from using a parachute until it’s too late.
The parachutes are also another maintenance item in increasing the cost of running the plane, and generally, the airframe won’t survive the accident, so people are hesitant to deploy them.
Wtf haha. Everything's autism nowadays isn't it.
Perhaps it's just an alignment of having the money to buy a small plane and being interested in planes.
Boomers and older generations tended to think of them as part of rural life. E.g. farmers would sometimes put an airstrip on a spare field. There's an episode of Mayberry (The Andy Griffith Show) in which Aunt Bea gets her pilots license.
Other than the fact that the crash happened, there doesn't seem to be any more detailed news yet, so the headline says pretty much what there is to know at this time.
https://www.wired.com/2010/02/plane-crash-kills-tesla-employ...
