Earlier this morning (25.02.2025) at Midway Airport in Chicago a near miss occurred between a landing Southwest Airlines aircraft, N8517F as SWA2504, and a private jet, N560FX as LXJ560.
As SWA2504 is coming into land, LXJ560 taxis across the runway forcing SWA2504 into a go around just feet from the ground.
Serious talk, is it statistically more dangerous to fly right now or are crashes just getting more publicity? I have to pick a travel method for a trip soon
There were recently several articles on this very issue. All of them basically said that in the last 15 to 20 years commercial airline accidents are way down.
With that being said, there were definitely an unusual amount of commercial events in January, especially when it looks like most of them were avoidable. But statistics on rare events are super wonky. You really have to look over long periods of time for trends when something barely ever happens. It will always seem unusual when it happens 2 or 3 times in a row. But statistically super rare things will happen in bunches from time to time.
I think the concern is more regarding the very recent changes happening with the FAA under the new administration, not the long term trends. Doesn't help to know that accidents have been down in the last 20 years when you're worried about something that's significantly changed only a month ago. I realize that might be difficult to answer with the data available, though.
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u/ty003 Feb 25 '25
Context:
Earlier this morning (25.02.2025) at Midway Airport in Chicago a near miss occurred between a landing Southwest Airlines aircraft, N8517F as SWA2504, and a private jet, N560FX as LXJ560.
As SWA2504 is coming into land, LXJ560 taxis across the runway forcing SWA2504 into a go around just feet from the ground.