Private Jet gone missing

Is it possible that the reason a plane accident is newsworthy is because (a) they rarely happen and (b) when they do it almost certainly results in fatalities? The statistics show that air travel is safer than road travel.

 

It's the illusion of safety with cars. The stupid monkey bit of our brain can't shake the notion that going up in the air must be more dangerous than being on the ground. Plus there's the illusion of having sole control of your safety and the comfort of familiarity.

 

It looks like somthing Biggles would fly . Chocks away !

 

I work on the navy base down here in pompey and the coast guard and hants and IOW air ambuance use our HLS to drop off patients for the ambulance or crew change overs, last week the pilot shut down and I had a coffee with him whilst waiting for the changeover shift i asked about the tragedy with the Leicester owner, the guy I was speaking too had served 30 years in the army air corps flying various aircraft and he told me the pilot that day would have just been a passenger and the fact it landed in the car park was more luck than judgement, they did simulator tests after and not once did they manage to manouver the helicopter,

 

I'm not having a go but what does he mean saying ' the pilot would have been a passenger ' , is he saying the Leicester owner was the pilot ?

 

No he's saying the pilot had no control, the helicopter was in control. Pilot merely a passenger.

 

Like auto pilot ? or am I being thick ?

 

Well I wouldnt like to comment!!

The helicopter was completely out of control, so the pilot could do nothing whatsoever about it, therefore he was effectively a passenger. I hope this clarifies it

 

No, the pilot would have had no control whatsoever, he would just have been like the other passengers

 

Exactly

 

To correct your comment and the title, it was not a jet.

 

It states on the BBC football transfers site that Cardiff have actually signed Sala for an undisclosed fee

 

They did, on Saturday.

 

Search called off for the night. Terrible news, I can't imagine how difficult this must be for those close to him.

 

Very sad. Horrible for all involved. I hope all people in the game, supporters, agents, players, shareholders, CEOs & managers can realise that some perspective is needed in modern football. Money has taken over. RIP to the poor people who have lost their lives, pilot, passeneger & crew.

 

How does a plane disappearance evidence the need for perspective in football?

 

The single engine plane they used is certainly designed to easily handle a channel crossing, it's bread and butter stuff. The channel crossing is only 10 to 15 minutes at the shorter points and the plane is designed to go up to 25,000 feet which would give a comfortable gliding distance to get to land if the engine failed. To stop it failing though the plane he used was extremely advanced for its class with a lot of anti stall features built in.

Onto the second point about planes not being any safer. They're a LOT safer than they used to be. From a selfish point of view every plane crash you hear about is good news as the cause WILL be investigated and changes WILL be made across the entire aviation industry if anything could have reduced the risk of the crash.
Plane crashed because of a bulkhead door opening? Change the bolting design across the industry.
Tail section separated? Double up on the rivets required.
Fan blade shatter? Increase inspection intervals to reduce fatigue.

We might hear about crashes fairly regularly but that is simply because of the number of flights out there. Think about how much passenger levels at manchester have increased over the years, 16m in 1997, 28m last year. That's an increase of a million people extra every month. Around 1.5m flights in the last 10 years and how many crashes can you remember involving a flight to or from manchester?

 

I've been to St Peters Port many times to visit my niece. In Winter the seas round the
Island are extremely " choppy" and freezing cold. Without the right kind of kit on you would
last ten minutes tops in the sea , before hypothermia started setting in. Unfortunately, if the plane involved
has gone into the sea, I'm afraid that they are not likely to find the poor passengers alive and
with no signs of any wreckage, it doesn't surprise me ,that the search has been abandoned for now.
It's a very very sad situation indeed, but really I do fear the worst.

 

Unfortunately light aircraft crashes are not rare in this country .
They are local events that are not always national news and do not appear on our local news .
The Sala "crash" would have been on the main news anyway with the area it disappeared in .

 

The human tragedy aside, Cardiff have just spent £15 million on this lad. Do football clubs insure against this sort of thing? Will they still have to pay the full transfer fee?