I can’t win with that one. If I don’t count the 9/11 planes, people argue that I should. If I count them, they tell me I shouldn’t.

For the record, 9/11 had nothing to do with airport security.

Agreed. Maybe there’s a disconnect with what we are both saying. Because while I’m not disagreeing with you, my takeaway was that a certain, small number of deaths “seemed” to have been an acceptable tradeoff. That whole ‘perception as reality’ thing. Either way, I’m not (intentionally) trying to lessen or take a dump on this milestone; it *IS* noteworthy.

And now, it’s just about Thanksgiving. It’s time to watch “Planes, Trains, And Automobiles”, where TWA, Ozark, and a mystery 747 all make cameo appearances. Southwest too, if you look hard enough.

I appreciate your attention to detail, but as Simon pointed out, the Alaska Airlines crash was in January, 2000.

Maybe a simpler way to summarize it is thusly: In the last twenty years, there hasn’t been a plane crash involving a US airline with more than 50 deaths.

That’s pretty straightforward and pretty astounding, when you compare the numbers to those in decades past, as I did in the tally at the end of the article. You don’t get a sense of what a milestone this is until you go back and look at how frequently crashes USED TO occur, year after year.

As for waiting until zero fatalities, that’s a nice idea but it’s almost certainly not gonna happen. Instead of aiming for an impossible target, appreciate where we are.

And I don’t feel that I’m marginalizing the relatively few deaths we’ve seen. Comair, Colgan, Southwest… I wrote about those accidents in considerable detail on my site and/or in my columns at Salon.com, when they occurred. The focus this time, you could say, is on the accidents that DIDN’T happen.

I think, what he really means is a line drawn at 737 and larger sized aircraft. Even though he says (to paraphrase) “not to lessen the deaths of those who did perish”, he actually does exactly that.

Let’s revisit this topic when we go twenty years with ZERO fatalities, period. Then, I think the true meaning of what he’s trying to convey will actually carry some weight. Until then, even if not intended, this post absolutely marginalizes the likes of ComAir, the woman sucked out the window, and so forth.

Nope. Alaska 261 was in 2000. Jan 31 actually.