Evening star., 1950-10-15

not represent the mass market tt
the question Of safety ranks high
in the reticence displayed by mil
lions to the invitation to become
steady airline patrons. Though
appealing, alluring and ingenious
sales-promotion programs are 60
ing on continuously, and getting
good results, that inevitable queS-
ton: What about accidents?"
signals the f1gure-wizardS to come
forward with their charts, tables
and graphs made up like gun
shot vitamin pill-hoping one of
their many types of concentrated
statistics will wipe out the worry
bug and put more people up in
the air.
Safety in all forms of transpor-
tation is continuing program,
but Of the three largest common
carriers-railroads, buses and the
airlines-the airlines suffer most
from accidents, primarily because
they usually are accompanied by
spectacular circumstances and al
most always involve people of
prominence.
Trot Out Figures
It ID sad enough and bad enough
for the scheduled airlines to have
q fatal accident brought on by
Q lapse or failure somewhere in
their operations, but they become
both angered and grieved when
charged with accidents that never
happen to them. This is neither
malicious nor deliberate, but when
word comes Of an accident to an
airplane and people are killed,
that's news and it is transmitted
with all possible speed, for there
ID competition in that field. too.
The details that follow do not
always reach the same people who
got the first report. and the first
shock, but they do endeavor to
identify the nature of the air.
crafts operations-military or
Nvil. scheduled, non scheduled, or
private. Yet, any airplane large
enough to carry four or more
passengers, even though privately
operated, but reported missing or
destroyed. is sometimes implied
to be an airliner until all the
facts are in.
So. first off the airlines have
TO trot out the latest statistics to
prove that, as in 1949, of all the
deaths from all kinds of civil fly
1ng-amounting to- ,134-only SO
scheduled air transport passengers
were involved. At the same time
they have to emphasize that the
16,604, ,143 passengers who few on
the Government certiflcated routes
last year did not get killed.
The statistical analysts are not
satisfied with the SO figure, but
they try to derive some comfort
from the fact that in 1888, for
example, when 80 airline pas
sengers were lost, only 1,475,122
were carried. Percentage-w wise
they say this means that IL years
ago 999978 per cent Of the pas
sengers survived-that's their
acknowledgement .0O22 per cent
were fatally injured. For 1949's
operations, the percentage is
99.9994 survived" and .0006 IA
tally injured, meaning that sched-
uled airline flying last year was
three times as good as the year
1898. This does have significance
for in 1949 more miles were flown,
more planes were operated, more
takeoffs and landings made and
more passengers handled-thus
more exposure to the chances of
something going wrong.
Some Comparisons
But in their zeal to get the whole
story over, after eliminating the
accidents overcharged to sched-
uled operations, the statisticians
make matters very confusing for
people who never mastered the
tntricacies of long division Qike
this correspondent, but who in
sist on knowing what their chances
are against being in a fatal air.
line accident.
For such as them, an enterpris-
ing airline vice president has just
issued q memo to his traffic gen.
Grating staff transmitting an ana
lysis of air safety data which, he
told them, will be of value to you
in discussions with passengers,
civic organizations and the press"
The analysis was:
"For the first seven months of
this year, air passenger fatalities
were IL for every 100000, 900 pas
senger miles, the equivalent of
8o,S40.744 passenger miles per
fatality. These figures are pretty
enormous. What do they mean?
They mean an individual pas