amigoingdown.com

Contrary to what you may believe, this is not one of those rather suspicious pornographic sites, you know the type you get emailed about at Hotmail every day (or maybe that’s just what I get in my inbox!), in fact it is a very novel idea, and one that could be very useful for those with a fear of flying. The site predicts your chance of dying in a plane crash on any particular route flown with any particular airline. For those of us that are rather ...
...will be able to choose an airline with the least chance of dying, or alternatively for those thrill seekers out there, you could choose an airline with a greater chance of crashing, just for that extra adrenaline rush!

Let’s have a look at some of the results. We’ll start with a fairly common journey, travelling from London Heathrow to New York La Guardia airport, using a British Airway 747. You’ll be very pleased to hear that your ... more

Contrary to what you may believe, this is not one of those rather suspicious pornographic sites, you know the type you get emailed about at Hotmail every day (or maybe that’s just what I get in my inbox!), in fact it is a very novel idea, and one that could be very useful for those with a fear of flying. The site predicts your chance of dying in a plane crash on any particular route flown with any particular airline. For those of us that are rather nervous about flying, it could be really useful as you will be able to choose an airline with the least chance of dying, or alternatively for those thrill seekers out there, you could choose an airline with a greater chance of crashing, just for that extra adrenaline rush!

Let’s have a look at some of the results. We’ll start with a fairly common journey, travelling from London Heathrow to New York La Guardia airport, using a British Airway 747. You’ll be very pleased to hear that your chances of crashing are a fairly healthy 1 in 33,253,771. But, that’s not very good compared to the same route travelling with Virgin Atlantic, where the odds are reported to be 1 in 86,471,526. Wow! That’s certainly one up for Richard Branson, I know who I’d rather fly with! I’m not sure how to interpret the figures, you could say you are nearly three times more likely to crash flying with BA than with Virgin! Just think if the national press got hold of this, there’d be an outcry.

Not quite so good is if you are flying from Tadjikistan (I’ve no idea where it is either!) to Iraq. The odds of your plane coming down are only 1 in 812,278! I don;t think I’ll try flying that particular route any time soon, or from Afghanistan to Liberia, where the odds are a ludicrously low 1 in 431,319, know you just wouldn’t feel safe with odds like these would you!

But don’t fret too much about these odds, even the one from Afghanistan, because according to the website, if you took a flight every day, you would travel for more than 1000 years on average before being involved in a fatal accident, and as the website says you probably have more chance of seeing Elvis fly overhead on a flying saucer, or as I say you’ve got more chance of your Virgin train arriving on time!

The website provides statistics for any counties you can think of (well, all that I could think of anyway) with a range of airlines and aircraft types. It’s interesting to see how different airlines compare for the same routes, certainly opens your eyes to their safety records!

But it’s not just statistics on this website, there is also a travel tips section, giving you advice on how to minimise your risks when flying, such as choosing a large aircraft (better chance of passenger survival) and flying non-stop (70% of accidents occur on take-off or landing!) It also has some interesting fact on turbulence. It seems you don’t even have to crash to get killed or injured, since 1980 20 passengers have died as a result of turbulence!

Having read this advice, for those people still a bit nervous about flying their is a book-store section, with a list of books and tapes to help you get over your fear of flying, with links to Amazon.com for easy purchasing, how helpful! There’s the rather over-titled “The Fearless Flyers Handbook: Learning to Beat the Fear of Flying with the Experts from the Quantus Clinic” (although it doesn’t shed any light onto what exactly the Quantus Clinic is, sounds like a hospital for Koala’s), to the similarly long-titled “All You Ever Wanted to Know About Flying: The Passenger’s Guide to How Airliners Fly. There is also a link so you can purchase a self-hypnosis tape, I just wouldn’t recommend listening to it whilst driving to the airport!

We are reliably informed that the statistics are accurate and kept up to date, but what practical use this website is I’m not so sure. If you are afraid of flying, knowing the odds of having a crash probably aren’t going to help much, particularly if you find out that the airline you are using has a worse record than another airline flying the same route, I think that would generate lots of telephone calls to the travel agent trying to change airline!

It’s interesting to see the differences between airline, and even aircraft types, but these figures are of no practical use to he average man in the street, still, good fun though. But having said that, do you rwally want to know what the chance of dying on your flight is, OK, I know I would but then I've got a depraved mind!

The website is very simple to use, there are only a few links and it is very easy to navigate. You’re not going to use it every day, but it’s good for curiosity value and to share around the office, particularly if you work for an airline! 

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