535. Why Is Flying Safer Than Driving?

Freakonomics Radio

Freakonomics Radio + Stitcher

Documentary, Society & Culture

4.6 • 32K Ratings

🗓️ 2 March 2023

⏱️ 56 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Thanks to decades of work by airlines and regulators, plane crashes are nearly a thing of the past. Can we do the same for cars? (Part 2 of “Freakonomics Radio Takes to the Skies.”)

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Tell me about a frightening incident you've had as a pilot.
0:06.6	Okay, I'm going to apologize to my mom and my wife on this one.
0:11.0	I had a smoke and fumes emergency when I was departing Guam and we thought our airplane
0:16.3	was on fire.
0:18.0	When you have an internal fire, you have not a lot of time.
0:24.2	So we turned around, we had to put the airplane on the ground very quickly, we had a lot of
0:28.2	gas on board.
0:29.9	I was in charge that day even though the other pilot was even more senior and experienced
0:33.9	than I was.
0:34.9	But I said, okay, I'm going to do these tasks, you're going to do these tasks and we had
0:39.4	separated mentally to go take care of what we needed to take care of to get that airplane
0:43.5	back on the ground as fast as we could.
0:46.1	And when we reconvened, all things were done, we had our oxygen masks on, we landed
0:50.7	the airplane safely and egress the aircraft.
0:53.7	How scared were you?
0:54.7	At the time, you're not scared.
0:57.1	You're training kicks in, you just start turning in an automaton and doing what you
1:00.2	know to do correctly.
1:04.4	That is Adam Yuhan.
1:05.9	Today he is a pilot for a major U.S. airline, but the emergency he described was some years
1:11.9	ago during an Air Force flight.
1:13.8	It was a Boeing KC-135 strato tanker heading out to refuel a bomber mid-air over the Pacific
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Freakonomics Radio + Stitcher, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Freakonomics Radio + Stitcher and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.