How do we avoid fatalities?
Following on from the thread on the midair I thought it would be more apt to discuss the various things brought up on a fresh thread.
A lot of folk seem to think that the answer in avoiding mid airs is to have more gismos.
I have flown a fair bit with aircraft fitted with traffic systems and whilst they can be a great help I can not help but think that they make you rely on them.
Yes true they do make you realise that there is more traffic than you see by just looking out of the window (but so does a radar service), but it is also true that there is a lot of traffic that is not carrying any form of transponder.
I am a firm believer that the old adage 'the most dangerous thing about flying is the drive to the airport' is a lot of non sense, the statistics bear that out.
However when it comes to the chances of having an accident in which a third party is involved I think that these odds are correct.
Midairs are almost invariably fatal and for that have an enormous impact on our perception. They are considered to be the 'failing' of a system which we all consider to be the 'gold standard' (just read the comments on this thread) and think we are good at but know to be less than ideal (again ample proof in the postings supplied here)
Most fatalities in aviation however are caused by other factors which do not involve others but for which the locus of control almost solely lies with the aviator involved. Interestingly most of us seem to think that those things will only happen to others as the behaviour displayed will never be ours. The various 'I learned about flying from that' and our own memories are however proof to the contrary.
Until such time that we realise that the biggest single cause for accidents is the 'human' in the 'human factors' we will see strong support for increased LARS/TCAS boxes rather than focussing on those things which in my opinion do matter.
FD