Give the guy a break, he’s probably done more to help people prep than anyone else in the country.
As to what he said about missing flights, I had to do a double take also. I’m sure what he meant is something to the effect that if an average of 10 people are no-shows for a typical flight, there are statistics to show an average of maybe 18 people are no-shows for the flights that crash...just not worded too clearly.
People just don't realize how rare commercial crashes are.
Since 1950 there have only been roughly 1000, or about 20 per year. That is of course for the whole world, and rates in the third world are a big multiple of those here. Crashes are so rare that terrorism is one of the major causes.
In most recent years we don't have a US crash, and sometimes we go several years between them.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_accidents_and_incidents_involving_commercial_aircraft
For purposes of discussion, let's allow for six crashes per decade.
There are upwards of 10M US flights per year, or 100M per decade.
Comparing the mean missing a flight from 100M completed flights to those from six crashes cannot statistically be computed, I suspect. I'm not a statistician, but work around statistics enough to have a "feel" for them.
This is, BTW, ignoring the obvious fact that crashes are often associated with bad weather, which may also have a major impact on number of people missing a flight, because they can't get to the airport on time or because their connection gets in late, etc.
IOW, any such statistic may not have actual statistical validity, and even if it does, there are alternative explanations other than the survivors having a "feeling" that leads them to intentionally miss the flight.
Having been a no show for a flight that ended up not leaving my airport because it crashed before getting there, I can think of a logical explanation for this (if the claimed statistics exist). I was a no show due to ice. The plane crashed due to bad weather and ice on the wings. It seems entirely logical that we would have more no shows in the weather conditions that produce more crashes.
Bob, yes he has and I’m grateful for that. Thank you, Kartographer, for all you do here and elsewhere.
I was looking for clarification, since you said, Kartographer, that there were statistics out there.