How likely is it for a 787 Dreamliner to have it's wings snap or its chassis break apart during flight?

[U.P. Cinnabar]

I mean, they must be quite common, since I know someone whose father was killed in a 100% fatality plane crash. Apparently the plane was flying somewhere in Australia, transporting some miners down to a place and was a few minutes away from landing when the wing snapped off and it fell down and crashed near a cattle station. The station man went down to have a look and that was it. So if even I know of people that are affected, then it must be reasonably common.

Sounds like a case of shoddy maintenance/improper inspection, which happens(human error), but not as often as you think, especially given how anally-regulated civil aviation in the first world(at least)in general and amongst the Commonwealth nations in particular is.

However, your anecdotal evidence has led you to draw a false conclusion.

You may indeed know of someone who lost a parent to a plane crash, just as people knew/were related to someone who lost his life in one of the three airliners to crash during 9/11,or when MH 370(?) crashed in the Indian Ocean a couple years back.

That, in itself, doesn't mean airliner crashes are quite common, any more than you, for example, being neighbors with someone who was injured or killed during the Cronulla riots 11 years ago means every white person in Australia is spray-painting "FUCK OFF LEBS!" over every square inch of the country. It merely means the law of averages caught up with you.

[Broomstick]

And then there were those flights that had a 100% fatality rate because of things like a LED light breaking, mysterious spinning, some kid turning the autopilot off, and some minor electrical faults. None of those things will quickly sink a ship..

I have absolutely no knowledge of a plane going down due to an "LED light breaking". Unless you can provide sufficient information that I can find a legitimate accident report on such an event I'd attribute that to a distorted rumor.

Spinning isn't "mysterious". It happens for pretty well understood reasons. Again, can you provide more information on such an incident?

The "some kid turning the autopilot off" sounds like Aeroflot Flight 593 which involved a pilot allowing his two children 1) onto the flight deck and 2) to play with the controls while in flight. This was not a problem with the aircraft, it's a people problem, akin to letting your 12 year old drive a car down the freeway, only arguably worse. This is all kinds of wrong, against regulation, and has only happened once in the entire history of aviation.

[Broomstick]

I mean, they must be quite common, since I know someone whose father was killed in a 100% fatality plane crash. Apparently the plane was flying somewhere in Australia, transporting some miners down to a place and was a few minutes away from landing when the wing snapped off and it fell down and crashed near a cattle station. The station man went down to have a look and that was it. So if even I know of people that are affected, then it must be reasonably common.

You're confusing anecdote with data.

As another example - colorblind women are quite rare in this world, one half of one percent at most. Yet among my siblings and I the rate is at least 25%. Should I then conclude that colorblind women are actually a fairly frequent occurrence? No - it's just that my family is a statistical outlier. Those will happen by random chance.

Likewise, most people do not personally know someone who died in a plane crash, but because fatal plane crashes do occur some people must know/be related to those deceased crew and passengers. You happen to be one of them.

Again - can you provide sufficient information that an accident report could be located? Date, location, and type of aircraft, for example. Wings do not fall off aircraft for no reason any more than the wheels fall off a car driving down the road for no reason.

[Simon_Jester]

And then there were those flights that had a 100% fatality rate because of things like a LED light breaking, mysterious spinning, some kid turning the autopilot off, and some minor electrical faults. None of those things will quickly sink a ship..

Exactly when and where did this happen? This sounds like something you read about in a reddit post with no sources or citations because someone completely made it up.

I mean, they must be quite common, since I know someone whose father was killed in a 100% fatality plane crash. Apparently the plane was flying somewhere in Australia, transporting some miners down to a place and was a few minutes away from landing when the wing snapped off and it fell down and crashed near a cattle station. The station man went down to have a look and that was it. So if even I know of people that are affected, then it must be reasonably common.

Firstly, this sounds like a small plane. Small planes (especially poorly maintained ones) are much LESS SAFE than large planes maintained carefully by large airlines. Flying in a large plane is much safer than flying in a small one.

[sgt67]

Based on a cursory search it looks like Archinist may be referring to http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2003/s860702.htm this incident in Australia from 2000. Essentially, a chartered Beechcraft exceeded its assigned altitude, the crew and passengers blacked out from hypoxia and the plane crashed. The plane was not rated for and did not have an alert system to notify the crew that the oxygen level was dangerously low. For reasons unknown the pilot never donned the plane's emergency oxygen equipment. Nothing was mechanically wrong with the plane, so I don't think Archinist gets any points on this one.

[Scottish Ninja]

Cruise tickets tend to cost a lot more than airline tickets, because you're buying days spent in a big floating hotel with a huge staff of people to take care of you. It's safe, but it isn't cost-effective as a way to travel. And most of the time you'd be going in circles.

Actually, for the limited number of routes available, traveling by sea can be fantastically cost-effective compared to flying. Just looking it up quickly, an American Airlines flight from JFK to Heathrow costs an average of $2000 for coach. First class is more like $10000+ (which is why very few people actually buy full-fare first-class tickets). Meanwhile I can get an inside stateroom on Cunard's Queen Mary 2 for $550 from New York to Southampton (and not more that 40 pounds for train fare from Southampton to London). Then consider that the cheapest experience aboard a ship (full bed, private bathroom, meals, can walk around and get fresh air easily, lounge around in open spaces) effectively puts airline first class to shame, let alone what you can get for paying airfare prices.

But nobody has that kind of time anymore.

(As a note the price above is per person based on two people sharing a stateroom - if you book solo it'll cost you a little over a thousand. Still very reasonable considering the alternative.)

The downside is that New York - Southampton is virtually the only direct route run by a major line. Going from other places to other places does tend to be rather more roundabout and therefore proportionally expensive. The better alternative is sailing by freighter, which actually do have limited space for passengers and can get you from, say, Los Angeles to Melbourne for around 2500 euros, but then I can get airfare for about $1000 for that route.

[Elheru Aran]

How long is that cruise? Four, five days?

If you do have the time... I'd say it's worth it, as long as you're willing to arrange transportation to and from the respective ports. That can be where the costs kick in.

My parents recently did an Atlantic cruise. I don't know how it worked, I think they went from maybe Virginia or someplace like that to Spain and the Mediterranean, before they took a flight home. I think it worked out reasonably well for them, but they live a very modest lifestyle on a very decent income, so they have plenty of money...

[K. A. Pital]

Actually, for the limited number of routes available, traveling by sea can be fantastically cost-effective compared to flying. Just looking it up quickly, an American Airlines flight from JFK to Heathrow costs an average of $2000 for coach. First class is more like $10000+ (which is why very few people actually buy full-fare first-class tickets).

That is waay too expensive. Transat economy class tickets by a decent carrier booked in advance should be around 500-700 dollars round trip, slighly cheaper than ship from Southampton or Barcelona.

But nobody has that kind of time anymore.

Not quite nobody... I would go to great lengths to avoid airplanes.

[Elheru Aran]

Actually, for the limited number of routes available, traveling by sea can be fantastically cost-effective compared to flying. Just looking it up quickly, an American Airlines flight from JFK to Heathrow costs an average of $2000 for coach. First class is more like $10000+ (which is why very few people actually buy full-fare first-class tickets).

That is waay too expensive. Transat economy class tickets by a decent carrier booked in advance should be around 500-700 dollars round trip, slighly cheaper than ship from Southampton or Barcelona.

This is one thing that's a little more tricky these days-- fare prices everywhere are all over the place depending on when you buy them, even down to time of day sometimes.

But as far as aviation goes, one thing it does have going is that there's a tremendous variety of options (and prices). You can fly direct in comfort for a fairly high price... or you can take a fairly roundabout route with several stops, shoulder-to-shoulder in the economy class, but save considerable money by buying your tickets at the right place and time... etc.

Cruises regrettably have pretty much been relegated to 'tourist/recreation' status. There are few pure passenger cruises anymore, most of those are only local (say between the Greek islands for example). Even that is quickly being replaced by cheap short-hop airlines unless freight is involved.

[General Zod]

Edit: nevermind.

[Sea Skimmer]

The problem with liners is fuel actually got expensive, back in the 1950s. It went from being like actual dirt prices it was to something that mattered, coal prices had previouslybecomea problem too for fast liners, and all of this imploded the possible economics of high speed ships. At which point seriously, ships take a while toget anywhere. As far as I'm aware QE2's route is the only thing you could count as an ocean liner route in the world, and that really just exists on the desire of people to ride on that ship. The actual passenger traffic is real, but it wouldn't come close to operating her. Probably more like a 10,000 ton liner could do it.

[Darth Nostril]

Actually, for the limited number of routes available, traveling by sea can be fantastically cost-effective compared to flying. Just looking it up quickly, an American Airlines flight from JFK to Heathrow costs an average of $2000 for coach. First class is more like $10000+ (which is why very few people actually buy full-fare first-class tickets).

Those numbers are way off, a two minute search brings up Heathrow to JFK return for as little as £206 for economy, £433 for Premium economy & £3139 for Business class, flying American Airlines.

[Archinist]

So when a plane is landing, it seems to tilt it's nose up and turn it's engines off and fall down a lot before going on the road. What is the risk of the nose going all the way up until the plane is vertical and fall directly downwards and crashing? Or what about the risk of losing too much speed and going backwards very fast while moving its nose up and over until it's flipping over and over vertically which would obviously destroy the plane and everything onboard.

[Tribble]

I'm not an aviation expert so I'll leave the fine details to people like Broomstick and to have them correct me when I am wrong, but first off...

So when a plane is landing, it seems to tilt it's nose up and turn it's engines off and fall down a lot before going on the road.

Pilots do not turn the engines off while landing the plane, They throttle the engine down and change the slap settings so that the plane goes into a controlled descent. At most perhaps they put the engines into idle on occasion, but I would imagine that's normally not done. The rate of decent is dependant on a variety of factors (weather, location of airport, location of runway, approach vector etc). The engines stay on until the aircraft gets to the gate (how else does it move while on the ground, you don't usually see them getting towed!). You can hear and feel the engines when they are turning on and off, so they really shouldn't come as a surprise.

What is the risk of the nose going all the way up until the plane is vertical and fall directly downwards and crashing?

IIRC while take off and landing are generally considered the riskiest parts of the flight,. the chances of an actual stall are very low - you don't see planes smashing into the ground every day! Actually, what you are describing is worse than a stall - I'm not even sure if it's possible to get something like a large passenger jet to go fully vertical before it stalls under normal conditions, especially if it is in the process of landing and its speed is already low. Would the engines have enough power to do that if the pilots suddenly went to full power and pulled the nose up? I highly doubt it, though erhaps Broomstick would know more... And besides which IIRC there are safety measures on the plane to prevent that sort of thing from happening (For example in addition to stall warnings IIRC the control column itself would prevent the pilot from making such a drastic move). If a plane stalls it would almost certainly be due to human error at some point during the line, it's not going to do that spontaneously. Again, odds are very low that a plane will stall during landing- as others have pointed out many times already, air plane crashes are rare. Please get that into your head.

Or what about the risk of losing too much speed and going backwards very fast while moving its nose up and over until it's flipping over and over vertically which would obviously destroy the plane and everything onboard.

Congrats, you broke my stupid meter.

If it's very difficult to get a landing passenger aircraft to go fully vertical before stalling, what do you think are the odds of getting it do the things you just described? The plane would have stalled, hit the ground and/or started breaking apart long before something like that would happen. Flip over and over vertically? Suddenly go from "too slow" to "going backwards very fast" instantly (and how would the aircraft start travelling backwards anyways?)? So the plane basically decided to start doing back flips all of a sudden? Really?

Posts like this are why I don't tend to take Dumber than Parrots seriously. This appears to be another scenario of his - the more evidence he is given showing that aircraft are quite safe to travel in, the more ridiculous his questions become as he tried to "prove" that they aren't safe.

[Lord Revan]

I suppose getting hit by a tornado or hurricane scale winds might slowly push a jetliner backwards but no sane pilot would go anywhere near a weather system that had them. Modern jets are quite heavy and as such have considerble amount of momentum that prevents any sudden changes in speed or direction, it takes a lot make any sudden changes to the speed or travelling vector of a modern passanger jet, something that pretty much cannot happen naturally or by accident. Also when the air speed slows down the forces acting on the plane become weaker.

besides as stated modern jets don't turn off the engines when landing but rather thottle them down, since you might have to abort the landing in a quick notice so you'll need more engines ASAP, and turning a jet engine on or off is a slow process, it's not like with a car where you just turn a key. Oh and before noses wheels became common, planes intentionally stalled to land so once you're on the runway getting the plane to crash in such a way that all hands are lost is pretty much impossible (unless other planes are involved and even that's so rare it's not worth worrying about).

if there's 0.0000000001% chance of something happening, you really shouldn't worry about it at all as the chance of it happening to anyone is so small that the chance of it happening to you specifically is more or less nonexistant.

Edit: yes the chance of something like Anarchist described happening is so low that it broke the formatting to display all the zeros.

[Simon_Jester]

So when a plane is landing, it seems to tilt it's nose up and turn it's engines off and fall down a lot before going on the road. What is the risk of the nose going all the way up until the plane is vertical and fall directly downwards and crashing?

A lot of your questions have been like this: "I saw the plane do X. What are the odds of the plane doing a super-duper huge exaggerated version of X that is crazy-big and gets everyone killed?"

The thing you should remember is that this is like asking "when you drive in a car, you put your foot on the gas pedal and the car speeds up. What are the odds that you'd push the gas pedal and the car would go faster and faster out of control until it's going a thousand miles an hour?"

The world isn't actually made up of huge forces just waiting to destroy stuff as soon as they are 'out of control.' You may have heard of something called "conservation of energy" and "conservation of momentum." These rules of nature act as limits on what a machine can do. They limit the amount of power that can be released and the amount of force that can be exerted.

A thing which is going slowly and speeds up a little cannot suddenly go 'boom' out of control and speed up a LOT. A thing which is designed to be stable and safe, and which tilts a little, does not suddenly spin out of control and explode.

Don't think of an airplane as a huge unstable thing that will go out of control the moment something goes even slightly wrong. It's like a car; if you take your hand off the steering wheel for a fraction of a second, or if the engine misfires once, the car keeps going. A momentary loss of power or control is not actually a problem that causes instant death. Now, a permanent loss of either of those things is a problem- but that's a much different and less probable kind of problem to encounter.

Or what about the risk of losing too much speed and going backwards very fast while moving its nose up and over until it's flipping over and over vertically which would obviously destroy the plane and everything onboard.

All this falls into the same category. During a landing the plane is tipped upward a few degrees. That does not mean the plane can suddenly tip upward ninety degrees or more. That will not happen unless the pilot suddenly decides they really, really want to commit suicide. Even if they did, it might be physically impossible due to the limits of energy and momentum- though a suicidal pilot could mess up a landing in a lot of other ways.

[Broomstick]

In the prior posts, the "stall" referred to is not the engine stalling, it's an aerodynamic stall, which is a disruption of smooth air flow over the wing of the airplane, which interferes with the lift that holds the plane up in the air. Just in case that caused any confusions with anyone.

So when a plane is landing, it seems to tilt it's nose up and turn it's engines off and fall down a lot before going on the road.

It does tilt its nose up, but not as much as you probably think. That slow the airplane down, which is part of making the landing a gentle one.

As noted, they do not turn the engines off - they engines are at or near idle which means they're quieter than at take off or cruise which may make it seem like they're off, but they're not. However, as noted by some of the incidents we've mentioned, even if they engines were off the airplane can still be landed safely.

The air is not "falling down" anymore than a car descending a hill is "falling down" or an descending elevator/lift is "falling down". It's a controlled descent.

What is the risk of the nose going all the way up until the plane is vertical and fall directly downwards and crashing?

Zero.

Or what about the risk of losing too much speed and going backwards very fast while moving its nose up and over until it's flipping over and over vertically which would obviously destroy the plane and everything onboard.

Zero.

Once the nose gets to about 17-20 degrees above the direction of travel (it varies a little with the type of airplane) the wings become less efficient at generating lift. When that happens the nose of the airplane will lower on its own. This is due to how weight is distributed on the airplane and is based on physics so it can not fail. It can not happen on an airliner. And no, the nose will not keep going downward, either - once the nose lowers sufficiently the wings start generating more lift and the whole aircraft stabilizes.

On a normal landing the "downslope" of the airplane's descent is 3 degrees. That's it. It's even called "a standard rate of descent". In a very, very few airports the landing approach might have a 4 or 5 degree downslope. That's it. It might seem larger because you're not used to being an airplane.

[Simon_Jester]

This ties into what I was saying. The forces that act on airplanes are in balance or the planes couldn't be flown at all.

When things are in balance, it is possible to exert small changes on the system (tilt the nose a few degrees).

But if you try to alter the system further by going "out of control," you find that this can't happen. Because other forces come into play, acting in the opposite direction.

Conservation of energy applies. This is why cars don't magically stop moving even if you turn off the engine- they take TIME to slow down.

Forces that are not significant on a balanced plane become significant on an unbalanced one. This is why if you drive way too fast in a car, then stop pushing down the gas pedal too hard, the car slows down. Drag from the air on the car is a much more significant force at high speed, so it does more to slow you down at high speed, which in turn pushes you back towards medium speeds.

[Broomstick]

Posts like this are why I don't tend to take Dumber than Parrots seriously. This appears to be another scenario of his - the more evidence he is given showing that aircraft are quite safe to travel in, the more ridiculous his questions become as he tried to "prove" that they aren't safe.

Either that, or he is profoundly ignorant about the world. Which is entirely possible. Many of the people I currently work with are relatively uneducated - they can do basic reading, writing, and math but that's about it - and just do not have a base knowledge of things like physics or chemistry. They are just as ignorant as Archinist's postings, but the saddest thing is that some of them are my age. They're that ignorant after a half century of living in the world and, I guess, are just that UNcurious as to how the universe works.

[Tribble]

Posts like this are why I don't tend to take Dumber than Parrots seriously. This appears to be another scenario of his - the more evidence he is given showing that aircraft are quite safe to travel in, the more ridiculous his questions become as he tried to "prove" that they aren't safe.

Either that, or he is profoundly ignorant about the world. Which is entirely possible. Many of the people I currently work with are relatively uneducated - they can do basic reading, writing, and math but that's about it - and just do not have a base knowledge of things like physics or chemistry. They are just as ignorant as Archinist's postings, but the saddest thing is that some of them are my age. They're that ignorant after a half century of living in the world and, I guess, are just that UNcurious as to how the universe works.

While he may be profoundly ignorant in real life, he is not helping his cause by:

Appearing to be willfully ignorant. He has the Internet, and he is posting on this forum. He clearly has enough command of the English language to be posting coherent (if ridiculous) responses. Would it kill him to use Google and/or WIki once in a while before saying something? "How do planes fly?" or "How do planes take off / land?" or "What is the safety record of air travel?" are not hard research topics - in fact, the basics of flight were taught in primary school, at least where I live. He has been asked multiple times to do a little research once in awhile, yet he constantly refuses.

Also, I don't see why some people think he is improving because his pattern is the exact same thing every time- start off with some silly (if interesting) topic, then make progressively more asinine changes to the scenario when he doesn't get the answer he is looking for. Here it was freakin obvious from the start that he was hoping some of us would agree with him that air travel is dangerous (hence my sarcastic 1st post) and as people point out the various reasons why it's safe, he comes up with more stupid ideas as to why aircraft might fall out of the sky.

Again, this is coming from a guy who now has two threads more or less dedicated to the "jackets make you colder" theory (and at least one other thread in a different forum). If he was intending on learning by posting things here, you'd think he would have gotten the point the first time around? It's hard to take someone seriously when they deliberately choose to ignore you.

[Lord Revan]

Pointing out how stupid his ideas is a soft form of the "and mockery of stupid people" part of the forum's slogan with the bonus since it's not obviously or really directly mocking person they might learn (in general that is if it's gonna work in this specific case is another matter) to become a smarter person because no one likes being made to look the fool for long.

[Sea Skimmer]

I suppose getting hit by a tornado or hurricane scale winds might slowly push a jetliner backwards but no sane pilot would go anywhere near a weather system that had them.

That's the key thing. Planes avoid bad weather as much as possible on an active basis.

That idea Anarchist had early in the thread, about pockets of thin air making the plane fall out of the sky for example, a threat like that sort of does exist with microbursts in storm clouds, which was discovered by a jetliner falling out of the sky. Several of them as I recall. Sudden downward pressure surge is extreme enough to simply remove all lift from the aircraft wing. But once identified we found we could even with 1980s tech, making automated processing for radar data to detect the relevant cloud conditions and flag emergency warnings to air traffic control. Larger planes also have weather radar themselves. You could probably engineer a microburst proof aircraft with enough blown flaps, and an extra engine to power said blown flaps (been done) but this is not reasonable for the typical jet. And without that yeah, the risk will just exist, but very well managed. Same for much else.

As for our beloved topic starter, he's trolling in that he does plainly want attention, but it does seem to have improved at least slightly.

[Elheru Aran]

Bear in mind that the only planes that *actively* seek out bad weather are scientific/weather aircraft, and they're usually military-grade aircraft that have been repurposed for the task such as the C-130... and even they aren't crazy. The great majority of commercial aircraft pilots will watch weather reports like a hawk and maintain communication en route regarding such things, hence routine announcements such as "Ladies and gentlemen, I regret to inform you that we are taking a small detour to avoid a storm system, this shouldn't make the trip much longer, please remain seated and keep your seat belts on in case of any turbulence" and whatnot.

[Terralthra]

I'm starting to think that rather than being a human child, Archinist is an early alpha of a machine-learning AI with some pretty good natural language processing modules, but like...zero physics modules. So, they process some page about this or that with some anecdote about, say, fans in South Korea, or whatnot, and quickly reach out to a place where some people will explain the issue, and in the process some Bayesian data regarding how to inquire about knowledge gaps without giving away one's non-carbon-based status to potentially suspicious humans.

[Raw Shark]

Archinist, I don't want to slap you upside the face with my full back into it, so please don't ever meet me in person.