A Tragedy for Sure - Germanwing Crash

Yes very sad event, with also quite a number of very young people. My thoughts are with the people who have lost loved ones.

Give it a rest, for once, Winky. Please.

That's 100 per day. 36,500 per year?

Wikipedia suggests about 3,520 last year. winky's gone wonky.

Got me. Yes a calculation error. 10 per day  - 3500 per year. 100 per day is for North America.

Yes, yes I have.

Nah. Not anytime soon, methinks.

Population Canada......30 million

Population USA............300 million

Easy to get muddled.......especially on a crusade.

Well, if you don't ask..........!!

Hopefully this time, there will be enough evidence from the CVR and the Main Black Box, together with ATC recorded transmissions to piece together what happened.

Very good.

Start a thread about a tragedy. Then self hijack it with some irrelevant nonsense.

Well I am kinda with Winky here.

Plane crashes have a particular horror/fascination (and in Europe too) but actually in the grand scheme of things maybe we need some perspective. Around the world hundreds of people died today unnecessarily, maybe from poor sanitation, lack of access to basic healthcare, starvation or in wars which quietly and conveniently slip from our news agenda in scruffy and poor countries. How many died in Libya today? How many civilians or kids? How was that reported today? How many again tomorrow?

The media get hysterical about the 'drama' of plane crashes (and I guess we get dragged along too). Some balance is not a bad thing, not reducing the sadness for theose lost in France but trying to keep all the places we can perhaps help in our minds too. For me that is supporting MSF for example.

After all...

No man is an island entire of itself; every man 
is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; 
if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe 
is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as 
well as any manner of thy friends or of thine 
own were; any man's death diminishes me, 
because I am involved in mankind. 
And therefore never send to know for whom 
the bell tolls; it tolls for thee

Always moves me to read that again. 

Bruce

Thing is, plenty of us travel by planes and quite often. Not many of us are taking those planes to Libya.

Media sell to their target audience, not those who will unlikely see it. Stands to reason then that plane crashes, especially in The West, are regarded as rather big news.

Sad but true!

It will always be big news in the West especially when so many people are killed at the same time and also because of it's rareness.

From experience it is also big news in certain countires in the Far East.

My heart goes out to the people who have lost relatives in this tragic disaster.

But why does it "stand to reason"? Why is plane crash more tragic and newsworthy than the incremental unnecessary deaths from a myriad of other causes? What twisted voyeurism draws us to such things? Why do we feel it necessary (or justified) to respond in a much more urgent and significant fashion? Why does Merkel feel the need to publicly express her sorrow for these particular deaths, as opposed to all the other accidental deaths that occurred that day?

We nearly all knew someone close to us who was killed on the roads, but are much less likely to have known someone killed in an aviation accident. Why are we so disinterested in the common tragedies? Are we bored? Do we really not care about any of the people killed in either the common or rare events, but just "enjoy" the novelty of big disasters? I find the whole thing irrational and disturbing. Our real lack of empathy for those we do not personally know is often truly shocking.

I don't disagree, I just get angry about the imbalance we are fed sometimes, and feel a need to point it out when I see the saturation coverage of a sad event like today.

Bruce

"People don't know what they want until we show it to them". (S Jobs)

" If I'd given people what they want, they'd have faster horses" (H Ford)

I think many people just sup up what's put in front of them. Plane crashes in The Alps, Tsunamis in The Pacific sell papers. It's editorial focus groups who decide what's news, not the news viewers.

Its not irrational.

Without newspapers or radio or television we would be unaware of most events far from home. Only the "big" (ie catastrophic) events would come to our knowledge.

We are also incapable of being aware of every single global death today, this week or this month. We can only cope with the statistics. Nevertheless, the media does try, For example in the UK we have just had "Red-Nose" day or Comic relief. November sees "Children in Need". But despite a whole week of heartfelt stories and pictures about death and poverty and disease we have only touched the tip of the global iceberg of "unnecessary" death. Single, isolated events just don't feature in the global fight for survival - Unless they occur close to home. Perhaps they should feature, but they don't. In return, we make small, but helpful, donations, either directly through charities, or indirectly through government taxation.

A catastrophe, or catastrophic accident when large numbers of people are killed or seriously injured would have come to our attention sooner or (more likely) later, even without the current media. News travels with travellers.

People are willing to take risks. Most of us evaluate those risks and decide which are worth taking. Usually because we believe we can control the risk. Hence we get into our cars each morning. Or in winky's case, his bike. Most of us know we can't control the risk of flying in a commercial airliner. Its down to the designer, builder, maintainer and pilots ie "others". We are willing to take the risk, but only if we can be assured its low and not systemic. That's why we are interested in finding out what went wrong.

PS if you don't agree with anything i've said, please exclude yourself from the "we" notation that I have used and accept that only applies to me, the missus and our next-door neighbours.

All news is local, to somebody. Just that to a news editor, whose sole mission is to press the buttons of his readership, big numbers mean bigger news than, say, a single driver killed in any one motorway incident.

Chris

Merkel: "The suffering of their families is now immeasurable"

Maybe so.

"According to the World Health Organization, hunger is the single gravest threat to the world's public health.^[2] The WHO also states that malnutrition is by far the biggest contributor to child mortality, present in half of all cases.^[2] Undernutrition is a contributory factor in the death of 3.1 million children under five every year.^[3] Figures on actual starvation are difficult to come by, but according to the Food and Agriculture Organization, the less severe condition of undernourishment currently affects about 842 million people, or about one in eight (12.5%) people in the world population.^[4] "

3.1 million children under five dead every year!

842 million people undernourished!

Starvation, wars, child labour, human trafficking, modern slavery, sex slavery in the UK, the list goes on....

Why is it that a 150 dead Europeans are causing such as stir?

It would be nice, if we were able to show the same level of compassion towards all human beings. Sadly, the next ship of immigrants stranded somewhere in the Mediterranean will surely be met with yet more scornful rejection, because enough is surely enough....

If only... the world could be a good place for all...

Well said. In other news, 'strayan websites are breathlessly and feverishly reporting that two of the 150 deceased were 'strayan. Because 'strayan lives matter the most.

Ah the pot calling the kettle eh?

What about when you factor in all cars on the road?

#deaths by car per year/(#of cars on the road every day * 365)

and compare this to 

#deaths due to airplane accidents per year/(# of planes in the air every day * 365)

To be honest - I don't know what the rations would end up looking like. 

Its what makes the world go round Howard. Cyclists and snivelling servants on golden pensions.