AF trouble

[grimmrad]

Disclaimer - no pilot or CC speaking. SLF with question to the professionals. No bashing either but looking at the info:

AF 447 down, another one in Congo allegedly hit a building with a wingtip, just recently one had to return to CDG because of smoke in the cabin (A330), another one reported trouble with, oh well, speed indicators (Source German "Spiegel")...

Is this worrying anyone of you professionals or is it just an alert towards AF now. In medicine its e.g. known that an apparent increase in a disease (incident) is not based on an actual higher rate of the disease (prevalence) but due to a better diagnosis, we see just more now. Same here?

Thanks

[Rainboe]

Your post has had no answers because it is probably considered nonsense. AF/KLM is a very big airline. If you were to publicise each and every incident for AA or UA, you would get similar headlines. Flying is so safe now that one fatal accident unfairly skews statistics. People started saying recently that Qantas safety was suspect because of a few overpublicised incidents. Look at it over not less than about 3 years, not what you see in the newspapers.

[joehunt]

Rainboe

Granted.

However is was with sickening and obscene haste the Europeans, lead by the French, wanted another blacklist drawn up for aircraft entering Europe, so soon after, recent events.

Some of the airlines in question have caused less fatalities than you know who.

[MATMAX]

Gents,
A simple and easy question :
Can you tell me how many a/c , AF get ?
(do you agree with 388 without counting KLM ? , 190).

[OzExpat]

As Rainboe suggests, there is more to it than a few gratuituous headlines that serve nothing other than media profits on an otherwise slow day for news. Most airlines, IATA, ICAO and regulators, have records of safety per million (or so) departures. I suspect that this, among other safety factors, might make the difference to the post by joehunt.

[joehunt]

OzExpat


"..............records of safety per million (or so) departures."

Correct, however, one or two countries pointing the finger have airlines, with far more fatalities per departure, than airlines banned or to be banned. Some on the list or proposed list have killed no one. Or are fatalities just "collateral damage" and don't really count?

Sure a percentage of the banned airlines are a bit ropey to say the least but I can't help feeling it is a case of the pot calling the kettle black.

[OzExpat]

Or are fatalities just "collateral damage" and don't really count?

No argument there joe and it would be tragic indeed if we dismissed air fatalities as readily as we tend to dismiss road fatalities. But therein lies a bit of a difference, eh?

I guess that, as there are so many vehicles on roads all around the world, we might expect casualties. I'm sure that neither you nor I - nor most other people - would want to be aboard an airline aircraft that becomes a statistic. It's likely that we're statistically safer on an airliner from a first world airline than any of the... well, lesser known airlines.

I have to travel on a few of those in the latter category, from time to time, and agree with you that their safety record is generally pretty good, even if their reliability leaves something to be desired. Whether or not they are - or should be - on a "ban" list is probably more a matter of politics and insurance than reality.

If you're trying to suggest that some of the entries to the "ban" list are, well, encouraged by major airlines, perhaps like AF, rather than for some sort of justifiable rationale, you might be right. After all, there's a chance that it would improve their own passenger numbers, especially in a generally depressed market. Still, it's hard to see how such a tactic would survive the scrutiny of a modern media that seems to store up "bad news" stories for slow-news days.