Risk Aversion?

Heathrow is fast approaching that situation.
With 2 runways, both operating in both directions for landing and takeoff, the job of the air traffic controllers can be very scary at times. Few people realize that at peak times, a plane takes off or lands every 40 seconds.
There have been numerous incidents over the years where in the midst of a take off stack, radar suddenly spots a plane heading towards the runway intending to land in the wrong direction. Needless to say, these planes are not arriving from the US, western Europe, or other well organized countries.

PS, Australian and Scandinavian airlines are among the best organized carriers in the world.

 

yeah, that's kind of a stupid way to measure this. i can kind of see how it would be considered the most even measurement, but since the nature of each means of conveyance is so different, it ends up kind of meaningless.

i don't think there's really any truly good way to compare, but if it was me i would probably go by deaths per trip (or billion trips, or whatever). that seems a bit unfair on the surface too since a cross country car trip is way more dangerous than a cross country plane trip, but i would bet a vast majority of plane fatalities are during takeoff or landing so really a cross country flight is only slightly more dangerous than flying from laguardia to jfk.

 

The older I get the less I have the urge to parachute out of a perfectly good plane.