Jokes about aviation industry aside, officials stress flying is safe
The nation’s top aviation safety officials sought to reassure travelers last week flying in the United States remains incredibly safe, despite a series of high-profile mishaps and an ongoing probe at Boeing that have spooked the public and turned airlines into fodder for late-night comedians and social media meme pages.
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg stressed at a conference hosted by news site Axios flying was the safest way to travel. Michael Whitaker, the head of the Federal Aviation Administration, repeated that message on NBC’s Nightly
News. And in a post on X, Jennifer Homendy, chairwoman of the National Transportation Safety Board, compared the airlines’ safety record against the 118 people who die on average each day in car crashes.
But their voices have to compete with the likes of comedian Jimmy Fallon, who targeted Boeing in a limerick on his show last week: “Spring break the students were going — excited, they all were a-glowin’. Then they let out a squeal, lost the door and the wheel, guess they shouldn’t have flown on a Boeing.”
The dueling messages reflect the complexity of understanding the current moment in aviation safety, which requires untangling several seemingly contradictory threads, experts say. January’s midair blowout on an Alaska Airlines flight was dangerous and could have led to people being killed, but the U.S. airline system has gone 15 years without a fatal crash.
Subsequent investigations turned up serious quality control problems in Boeing’s 737 Max factory, but the FAA says it is continuing to certify planes coming off the production line as safe. A string of other recent in-flight incidents prompted the FAA on Saturday to announce it would increase its oversight of at least one major air carrier, United Airlines — but experts say there’s no sign of a systemic problem.
The NTSB, which is leading the investigation into the Alaska Airlines incident, is responsible for investigating every aviation accident involving significant damage to an aircraft or injuries to people on board. So far this year, it has opened 10 investigations into airline flights, compared with 13 in the same period last year. Some recent incidents that have attracted attention — like a United Airlines flight that lost a tire — did not rise to the level requiring an NTSB investigation.
Robert Sumwalt, a former chairman of the safety board, said he sees no evidence flying has become less safe. While he said it’s not acceptable for wheels to fall off planes or a jet to run over the end of a runway, the system has redundancies in place to keep people from getting hurt. “What I believe we have is a situation where once one or two of these things happen, the media starts jumping on these things,” Sumwalt said in an email. “It’s a feeding frenzy.”
For now, the safety worries do not appear to be dampening Americans’ enthusiasm for air travel. In recent polls, respondents have said they still view flying as generally safe.
And Airlines for America, a group representing major carriers, forecast spring travel demand will be up 6% compared with last year, predicting a record 167.1 million people will fly in March and April.