r/news • u/Canadian-Man-infj • 1d ago

U.S. Coast Guard searching for missing Hamilton-based air ambulance with 6 passengers

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/hamilton/hamilton-air-ambulance-missing-us-coast-guard-search-9.7368182
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u/browsk 1d ago

Im starting to think our aviation field is falling apart

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u/whatugonnadowhenthey 1d ago edited 1d ago

Why? Aviation fatalities are still incredibly rare and aviation is by far the safest form of transportation on a per mile basis. A few headline stories followed by fear mongering isn’t the “aviation field falling apart”. And to anyone disagreeing go look on a flight tracker website and see all the planes in the air right now. Odds are every single one of those flights will take off and land without issue day after day, flight after flight, 365 days of the year. If one out of 5.6 million crashing gives you distress, go to therapy.

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u/Deranged40 1d ago edited 1d ago

aviation is by far the safest form of transportation on a per mile basis.

Remember, this statistic is only true of US Commercial aviation. At any given time in the US, about 15-20% of the non-military craft that are airborne are commercial aircraft. The vast majority of airborne aircraft at any given time are general aviation craft. For every commercial airport in the US (about 5,000) there's 3 private airports (almost 15,000). (source: faa.gov)

The popular statistic you're mentioning is not true of general aviation. General aviation has hundreds of crashes with fatalities every single year and is statistically not as safe as driving an automobile. There are no years on record where no general aviation fatalities were recorded. 2024 recorded the fewest fatalities in the past 30 years, with just about 300 people dying in a plane crash.

And a side note: this aircraft was Canadian and crewed by Canadians, and I can't find any evidence that it had entered US air space on this particular trip, even though its destination was Boston

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u/cracked-tumbleweed 1d ago

Yes, this. There are plenty of YouTubers making bank off of the fatal mistakes of private pilots.

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u/TminusTech 1d ago

At any given time in the US, about 15-20% of the non-military craft that are airborne are commercial aircraft.

Uhhhh please provide a source.

For every commercial airport in the US (about 5,000) there's 3 private airports (almost 15,000).

You misread the FAA page, The FAA says there are about 5k public use facilities and 14.4k private use facilities. Public use does not mean commercial airport. There are about 500 commercial service airports in the US. Most of the 5k public are general aviation, so around 90 percent of airports in the FAA national airport system are general aviation airports.

I think the underlying issue is that people often conflate general aviation with commercial aviation when interpreting accident reporting.

General aviation has become progressively safer over time, but it is still substantially more dangerous than scheduled commercial flying. Because general aviation accidents make up a large share of aviation accident headlines, they can also distort the public perception of aviation safety as a whole.

The difficult part is that there is no especially good metric for the number of unique people who participate in general aviation each year. General aviation accounts for most individual civilian aircraft in the United States, but that does not mean most people who fly are using general aviation. Commercial aviation serves a vastly larger population: roughly 135 million U.S. adults take at least one commercial flight in a typical recent year.

At the same time, general aviation exposure is much more concentrated. Pilots, flight students, instructors, aircraft owners, and other regular participants are likely to fly far more frequently than the typical commercial passenger. So simply comparing the number of aircraft, accidents, or fatalities without accounting for the number of people involved and how much they actually fly can give a misleading picture. They are different categories of activity with very different risk profiles and very different populations using them.

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u/Deranged40 1d ago

Uhhhh please provide a source.

I literally did. From the FAA. Please, at least click the source provided before commenting further. This is as far in your comment as I read.

If you would like to provide information saying otherwise, feel free to.

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u/TminusTech 1d ago

I did click it. The FAA page you linked does not appear to support the claim that only 15–20% of non-military aircraft airborne at any given time are commercial aircraft.

It does contain the airport/facility numbers you cited, but those were also mischaracterized: the roughly 5,000 figure is public-use airports/facilities, not commercial airports. The number of commercial-service airports is closer to 500.

So if the 15–20% figure is somewhere on that FAA page, point me to the specific table or section, because I’m not seeing it. Otherwise, the link is not actually a source for that claim.

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u/salazar13 1d ago

Looks like the keyword was “feel”

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u/[deleted] 1d ago

[deleted]

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u/salazar13 1d ago

I am on your side!

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u/shakygator 1d ago

im outraged you wont be outraged with me!

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u/Friendly-Profit-8590 1d ago

Though I agree most car crashes are non fatal. Plane crashes, though, are a different story

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u/pfft_master 1d ago

I don’t know the stats but we’ve all seen lots of stories the last fews years… Is it not possible that two things could be true: flying is incredibly safe compared to any other mode of transport AND plane incidents are on the rise? Again I don’t know the stats, but both could be true.

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u/troyunrau 1d ago

But they're not actually on the rise. The media coverage of them is on the rise.

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u/nittanyvalley 1d ago

It’s feels like the number of near misses and airline incidents due to humans not following established procedures is on the rise.

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u/SillyGoatGruff 1d ago

If you don't know the stats, why wade in with an opinion?

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u/pfft_master 1d ago

Because it is all just opinion or conjecture until facts are presented. That was my point.

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u/whatugonnadowhenthey 1d ago

Umm.. so go lookup the stats?

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u/iupuiclubs 1d ago

Did you go look up the stats to back your idea this is just from media exposure?

If you did you would see there are no up to date stats on this. So you just said all that as a feeling

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u/pfft_master 1d ago

I was suggesting that providing that data might help demonstrate your point better than just being a douche. But I don’t really care at all, douche away!

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u/whatugonnadowhenthey 1d ago

Google is free

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u/iupuiclubs 1d ago

There are no up to date aviation fatalities charts. Its not like FRED tracks it.

Google is free but you didn’t use it at all to actually see if what you’re saying made up in your head is correct.

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u/whatugonnadowhenthey 1d ago edited 1d ago

???? Every aviation incident large and small is investigated and tracked by the NTSB. I know you’re just trying to convince yourself aviation is dangerous but don’t be silly

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u/whatugonnadowhenthey 1d ago

And if you’re going to be one of those “erm source 🤓” children. The NTSB tracks all of this. I’m shocked you can’t find this. https://my.ntsb.gov/monthly

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u/pfft_master 1d ago edited 1d ago

Kind of funny you insist on NTSB in a thread about a Canadian plane coming from Bermuda that crashed in offshore waters. NTSB might not even lead or catalog this investigation.

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u/whatugonnadowhenthey 1d ago

So google ICAO and tell me if they say something different!

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u/pfft_master 1d ago

Why are you just telling everyone to do research to back up your claim? You don’t seem to have too solid a grasp on sources yourself.

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u/iupuiclubs 1d ago

You have literally 10 comments to multiple people, whining about not copy pasting a source. This feels like interacting with a child. Hey buddy, if you want to make a point, try linking to facts not just airily saying things then whining when someone asks you for a source.

It’s a giant drain, and a net effect of no one learning anything and still having to interact with a child.

> This dashboard is only showing accidents and will not include incidents and will be less than that reflected in the query on CAROL.

Does this include all aviation fatalities?

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u/whatugonnadowhenthey 1d ago edited 1d ago

If you’re incapable of doing your own research or googling literally anything just say so. EVERY source you can find says aviation crashes are decreasing.

You literally have multiple comments begging for a source when you have a phone in your hand. Google is free

If you can find a source that says aviation incidents are actually on the rise, I’d be very interested. Believe it or not, the global consensus is that aviation is extremely safe and getting safer. If YOU want to make a point that it’s somehow not, please provide your source

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u/MountainFriend7473 1d ago

Well with a lot of regulatory cuts in US and being asked to do more than one persons jobs more thank likely things get missed that are crucial