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  • No Fly Zones

    Reading news stories today, I started to think about these no-fly zones. The FAA made Ben Gurion one for a day. Anyway, my thought: Airlines have done so many things to offset higher costs these days, including driving up load factors. There must be some load factor below which they won't fly. And that is what makes me curious. A flight that goes to or through a dangerous zone should, rationally, have a hard time selling tickets. Oh, I know there's a fringe element that scoffs at "the danger of flying". But I'm guessing that element can't fill planes to the profitable load factor. So it seems to me that keeping out of no-fly zones should be automatic. People want to travel to the other end, not till fortunes of war cause a premature "landing" in a field of smoking rubble. Heck, remember the volcanoes in Iceland? Planes stuck on the ground. Passengers sleeping on floors in Europe? How can a WAR be safer than an erupting volcano?

  • #2
    Believe it or not, flying over a war zone is not as dangerous as flying into a cloud of volcanic ashes.

    --- Judge what is said by the merits of what is said, not by the credentials of who said it. ---
    --- Defend what you say with arguments, not by imposing your credentials ---

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    • #3
      How many planes went down in each case?

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      • #4
        Originally posted by EconomyClass View Post
        How many planes went down in each case?
        How many planes flew in each case?
        Hint: there are dozens, sometimes hundreds of planes flying over war zones every day, every year.

        --- Judge what is said by the merits of what is said, not by the credentials of who said it. ---
        --- Defend what you say with arguments, not by imposing your credentials ---

        Comment


        • #5
          Originally posted by Gabriel View Post
          How many planes flew in each case?
          Hint: there are dozens, sometimes hundreds of planes flying over war zones every day, every year.
          Ok clearly flying over say, Colombia, which has been at war with the FARC for decades, doesn't count. Nor does flying over places where the 'war' is limited to small arms guerrilla type stuff. Flying over Russian equipped,funded and backed places however is a different story. So to is a ace like Iraq where the "insurgents" may very well have captured full on military aa equipment.

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          • #6
            I am under no way supporting flight over war zones.
            I am supporting no-fly in volcanic clouds.

            In certain types of volcanic clouds, your engines (potentially all of them) will fail with almost 100% chance. That's why I say that it can be more dangerous that flying over war zones (including East Ukraine, and even more Ben Gurion which is the one mentioned by EC).

            So, I am specifically addressing this question:

            How can a WAR be safer than an erupting volcano?
            Oh, yes. It can be safer. Safe enough? That's another question.

            --- Judge what is said by the merits of what is said, not by the credentials of who said it. ---
            --- Defend what you say with arguments, not by imposing your credentials ---

            Comment


            • #7
              Originally posted by Gabriel View Post
              Believe it or not, flying over a war zone is not as dangerous as flying into a cloud of volcanic ashes.
              I probably sound bi-polar...I still have not seen a good discussion of why it was supposedly safe for MH to fly over this war zone...it might have been a very well thought out decision. I'm more bothered by the suggestion that FL 30-something was OK.

              Sitting here, it's very easy to say they should be nowhere within 50 miles of a war zone.

              Oh, that's not enough?...Ok, 100 miles...

              There's missles that work at 100 miles?

              Well then...ummm...errr.... Ban all flights everywhere. That will solve Missiles, Guys who don't watch airspeed on short final and guys who think pulling full back relentlessly without giving meaningful thought to pushing over a little from crashing...
              Les règles de l'aviation de base découragent de longues périodes de dur tirer vers le haut.

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              • #8
                Well, Gabriel's comment begs a condition: It depends. "War zone" is a grand generality. Flying over parts of Central Africa overrun with militias could be called "flying over a war zone". But to then infer "it must be safe to flying over Ukraine" is missing all the differences. The MAJOR difference missed here is the fact that planes had previous crashed due to anti-aircraft fire. Yes a plane's engine COULD fail flying into a cloud of volcanic ash, but to say it WILL fail is like predicting the weather. Or generalizing about flying through the Intertropical Convergence Zone. Both are risky situations, but planes will not be grounded as a result. Coming back to the latest tragedy, this was a case where the risk was SHOWN to be excessive. You have to send combatants into a war zone where they are being killed. You do NOT have to send air passengers in there.

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                • #9
                  Originally posted by EconomyClass View Post
                  ...The MAJOR difference missed here is the fact that planes had previous crashed due to anti-aircraft fire...
                  I haven't seen this discussed much- but the MAJOR FACTOR in what you mention is TIME.

                  Please take these comments below as parlour speculation- and tongue in cheek- with maybe just a shred of truth.

                  As stated previously- I'm sure that the area was carefully scrutinized by vagarious "safety committees".

                  But that being said, I'm not so sure the airlines safety committees meet quite often enough...

                  It seems like the military shoot downs were all in a day or two- and it takes a few hours for information to flow and be analyzed and then the committee has to meet and ponder everything and reassess risks and reach a consensus...then you have to establish the new restrictions get them reviewed and communicated and placed into systems.

                  Maybe it should all happen faster, but then again- if you look at the response timeline in the USA during 9/11 it's an unfortunate fact that it takes time for information to travel and for decisions to be made and then for the decision information to filter back out.
                  Les règles de l'aviation de base découragent de longues périodes de dur tirer vers le haut.

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                  • #10
                    Sad fact for the dead that air agencies, in this day and age, are so slow. I still maintain it all comes back to MONEY. Airline deregulation has pushed economics up the scale so far that the concept of "risk" has been devalued. And to my mind, the traveling public is way too gullible, too trusting of the the "shepherds" who are supposed to care about their survival. They've overlooked so much, on the record, that I've gained the habit of looking past them and doing my own risk management. I'm not compulsive about flying anywhere. And I'm not a fan of rationalizing failures. There's no way to be absolutely sure you won't be a smoking corpse in this day and age, but in the end it is up to you to make sure you haven't trusted authorities too much. Rationalize and trust? Then, tell me how much sympathy you really deserve when the bad news comes in that you didn't make it? Really, how much trust is reasonable nowadays?

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