I think it's just because a large swathe of the general public only easily understand the concepts of delay or sudden-death in aviation, Sallyann, with precious little in between other than their basic feelings about being shaken or stirred, or whether 'it was a close one' as implied in this BBC story.
Probably even those of us that do understand good chunks of it still have families who whilst very capable in their own field, just trust to God or some other belief perhaps based on extremely basic knowledge of statistics, when they enter an aircraft.
Let's face it, from a layman's viewpoint most of us don't even understand how to build a paper aeroplane that flies well, let alone explain to ourselves why it is safe to sit in an aluminium cigar tube and let someone light the blue touch paper. Best we manage is that it is self-evidently "very safe", but that's not really a valid rationalisation, it's a state of mind we all revert to easily.
Thankfully, the concern raised in the BBC Report, however short-lived amongst a wide audience, has become a concise matter of public record, and therefore it must surely be reviewed again in depth by the proper authorities for risk of "we told you so" reports later, if for no other reason.
Last edited by slip and turn; 23rd Mar 2008 at 13:47.