The Risk

Let's be clear about one thing: the way to win the war on terror is to not be terrified. Part of not being terrified comes from breaking up bomb plots. But it's just as important to do the math.

...it would seem to be reasonable for those in
charge of our safety to inform the public about how many
airliners would have to crash before flying becomes as dan-
gerous as driving the same distance in an automobile. It turns
out that someone has made that calculation: University of
Michigan transportation researchers Michael Sivak and
Michael Flannagan, in an article last year in American Scien-
tist, wrote that they determined there would have to be one
set of September 11 crashes a month for the risks to balance
out. More generally, they calculate that an American’s chance
of being killed in one nonstop airline flight is about one in
13 million (even taking the September 11 crashes into
account). To reach that same level of risk when driving on
America’s safest roads — rural interstate highways — one
would have to travel a mere 11.2 miles.

Looking at all these images of endless security lines at the airports today, thanks to this foiled bombing plot, it occurs to me that the ideal solution would be the complete separation of passengers and their luggage. In other words, if the passengers boarded one plane and their luggage flew separately in another plane with only two pilots on board. (Perhaps the luggage plane could fly just a little bit faster, so your bags were waiting for you when you arrive.) Blowing up a plane full of luggage -- with a body count of two -- wouldn't have the same PR value for the terrorists, and passengers would be able to fly entirely secure (though without their laptops and lattes.) I realize, of course, that doubling the number of planes in the sky is not feasible, but still, if you were designing the system to be terrorism proof from scratch...

Comments

[jesstokes]

Your "multiple airplane" infrastructure already exists: FedEx, UPS, DHL...I'm going to start shipping my personal items to my hotel a day ahead of time.

[Rob]

Funny, I had the same thought while watching the news reports. But since the apparent weapon is now some sort of liquid(?), then that's the kind of thing that might easily be hidden or sewn inside clothing.

And so following this logic, I think the only choice we now have is to require airline passengers to change out of their street clothing and into the kind of shiny, form-fitting jumpsuits that people wore in 1960s sci-fi films. Maybe with a stripe across the front, or a little spaceship insignia.

[pwb]

Cars and planes are so different that deaths-per-mile-traveled is really not a good comparison. If you compare deaths-per-trip, for example, you would find air travel far more deadly. And this is a more proper comparison since cars have a similar risk level for the duration of the trip whereas planes are much deadlier at takeoff and landing than the period in between.

[garylove]

That would be an interesting question to pass around the airports today. Would people be willing to give their luggage to a door to door shipper like FedEx a day ahead of flying, if that would mean that they could walk right onto the airplane, bypassing ticketing and security.

[eldan]

The trouble is that all the recent security has been focussed on what passengers can bring on to the plane with them, not their checked baggage, so I think the 2-planes approach is solving a smaller problem than the one security services are mainly concerned with.

[Faiser]

I agree with the comment made by garylove. The issue was with the carry-ons, and not the stowed luggage.

[Alan Jacobs]

Actually, Steven, your idea has more merit than you think. A single cargo plane could hold the luggage for a dozen flights or more (in some cases much more). A cargo flight could come from LaGuardia to O'Hare (for example) to a designated cargo gate, where the luggage for the various flights could be picked up and distributed to the baggage claim areas at the appropriate terminals. It would create additional logistical complexity, but not so much, and relatively few additional flights.

[maglet]

偶然进来的。

[maglet]

偶然进来的。

[Stoo]

Just a thought:
How about dividing the cargo hold into 2: (going on the whole plastic bag caper yesterday).. Main Luggage and 'Lounge' Luggage... You have an airport issued 'Lounge' bag... to put your phone / laptop / wallet / books etc. You basically arrive... check in your main luggage and then you can walk around with this 'Lounge' bag... 30mins before the flight... you go to the 'Lounge' desk... and they take your Lounge bag away, test it and stowe it... you're left with just your passport and boarding pass... not exactly ground breaking... but you wonder what else can be done in terms of altering the traditional check in methods to improve security without impacting too much, peoples lives whilst within an airport.

[Waterhot]

I'm surprised there hasn't been more reaction to the extraordinarily restrictive list of items permitted in the famous transparent plastic bag - and particularly to the ban on books, magazines and papers. For a significant part of the flying population, an aeroplane is an extension of the office. I have not heard anything thus far that remotely justifies preventing people taking reading matter on board. I'm all for not terrifying people, but whatever happened to the theory of distraction as the best method for managing fear ? Besides, some of us have precious few opportunities to sit down and read a book cover to cover, other than on long haul flights. The last book I read on a transatlantic flight ? EBIGFY.

[MKM]

Reading materials banned? Where was that published? Is one of the airlines already practicing this policy?

Many passenger airlines also transport cargo. Oddly, the shippers of that cargo are not required to fly along. Perhaps, changing that could be the first step in the passengers only policy that you suggest.

And, why when many corporate jets are equal in size to the aircraft flown by commercial airlines, has the TSA only implemented guidelines (read: unfunded "suggestions") to enhance security at general aviation (GA) airports? Many GA airports are located in major metropolitan areas and frequently aren't fenced, patrolled by security personnel or practice any sort of passenger, luggage or cargo screening.

Don't even get me started on sea ports...

[marina]

I agree with you that the ideal solution would be the complete separation of passengers and their luggage.And being an european, used to short distance flights, I would prefer no cabin luggage too, specially no electronic devices on bord. On the other hand, I think that in the near future the terrorists will carry the bombs into their own bodies. After all they intend to die, isn't it?

[Steve]

The idea about flying our baggage seperately is silly. Furthermore, it would be really bad for the environment. Global warming is probably the biggest threat we face.

[Dirk D. Phoenix]

With most major airlines wavering on the brink of insolvency, forcing them to run two planes for the price of one would certainly kill them dead quickly.

...but suppose the government does another massive bailout (corporate welfare being the rave and all) to keep the majors going. Well, now how are you going to pay for extra airports? The system cannot handle doubling the traffic load - it is already stretched thin with what it has now (especially the NE corridor - Jersey/NYC), so 2x the traffic means we need 2x airport capacity, 2x air traffic controllers, and...

It is amusing (and very sad) to see everyone get so worked up over something that has such a small chance of happening that it is not really worth worrying about, but yet we spend so much money to have our Security Theater (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security_theater) and then wonder why our schools, economy and international reputation suck.

[Stefan Herzog]

There is another, sadly ironic fact about terror attacks and the risk of dying in a plane or in a car:

Not only is it more risky to drive than to fly as mentioned in this post. Also more people die in car crashes because some people avoided flying by plane and thus took the car, which is in fact, as we learned, objectively more risky than flying.

As Gerd Gigerenzer puts it in his study "Out of the Frying Pan into the Fire: Behavioral Reactions to Terrorist Attacks" published in "Risk Analysis" this April:

"I analyze the behavioral reactions of Americans to the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, and provide evidence for the dread hypothesis: (i) Americans reduced their air travel after the attack; (ii) for a period of one year following the attacks, interstate highway travel increased, suggesting that a proportion of those who did not fly instead drove to their destination; and (iii) for the same period, in each month the number of fatal highway crashes exceeded the base line of the previous years. An estimated 1,500 Americans died on the road in the attempt to avoid the fate of the passengers who were killed in the four fatal flights."

see this DOI for the abstract of the paper
http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1539-6924.2006.00753.x

[DFDF]

http://www.hugechoiceof.com/

[popi]

http://www.geilestars.net/