[dwheeler]

Yes, the Veritasium episode is great.

In short: there's plenty of evidence Amelia Earhart was reckless. I'm sad that she paid with her life, but that is sometimes what happens when you're reckless while using dangerous machines.

[sokoloff]

Captain A. G. Lamplugh, a British pilot from the early days of aviation once famously said “Aviation in itself is not inherently dangerous. But to an even greater degree than the sea, it is terribly unforgiving of any carelessness, incapacity or neglect.”

[spankibalt]

> Aviation in itself is not inherently dangerous.

Yes, it is. Otherwise, "any carelessness, incapacity or neglect" wouldn't be so "terribly unforgiving".

[unethical_ban]

Agreed. It is like saying a tightrope isn't trying to harm you, just don't fall off.

[marcosdumay]

In car transit (like most things in life), you can do everything right and still die. In aviation, if you do everything right, you'll land safely.

[krisoft]

> In car transit (like most things in life), you can do everything right and still die.

Same with aviation. The DHL Flight 611 over Überlingen, Iran Air Flight 655, Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752, American Airlines Flight 5342, Pan Am Flight 1736 are just the few easy ones which comes to mind immediately.

> if you do everything right, you'll land safely.

You. And the people who designed your aircraft. The people who maintain your aircraft. And the ATC. And other pilots. And the people on the ground operating anti-aircraft missiles.

[ephou7]

The two pilots in the Tenerife aircrash would beg to differ.

[gambiting]

>> In aviation, if you do everything right, you'll land safely.

The pilots who died in the 787 MAX crashes would disagree. They did everything exactly as they were trained to do and still crashed.

[david-gpu]

> 787 MAX

You are thinking of the 737 MAX [0]. There is no such thing as a 787 MAX yet [1].

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_737_MAX

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_787_Dreamliner

[gambiting]

Yes obviously, sorry that was a typo.

[deepsun]

Yep, and how my instructor said, what's worse is that the sky can let you enjoy being careless 100 times and then punish.

[HeyLaughingBoy]

Same thing with farmers: it's usually the old, experienced farmers who die in dumb ways. They've been doing the same dangerous thing their whole lives and become complacent until it catches up with them.

[deepsun]

Interesting, didn't know about farmers. Skydivers are the same, most accidents happen to experienced ones. But it's understandable, as adrenaline wears out with experience.

Pilots typically are trained against that complacency, plus, as they say, everyone can be stupid for 15 minutes a day, plan for that. I found piloting pretty boring, if done right. Talk about soul-crushing.

[libraryatnight]

That's just life.