There are two groups of people when it comes to planes. You either love them, or you don't. One of the problems is that every time a plane crashes, it becomes big news, front page of the paper news. What gets no mention is the thousands of planes that come and go every day, with no occurrence whatsoever.
When Jeff and I bought our plane, the boys seemed less than enthusiastic. They were worried about things like what would happen if we crashed. Answer? We crash, simple as that. Jeff is a great pilot and I have no fears when we're up in the air. Life is too short to worry about the "what if's" that might or more likely not occur.
I haven't been on a commercial plane in years. I do remember though being packed into a plane like sardines in a can. And heaven help you if you have a window seat and need to get up to go to the bathroom! Horrors. There was a time, and it was a long time ago, when you actually were given a pretty decent meal on long flights. I believe those days are mostly long gone. If the person in front of you reclines their seat, then it's likely you will lose all circulation in your legs from being unable to adequately move around. I don't know who designs planes, but whoever they are, they need to look at the "growing" population. People are getting bigger not smaller. I know it's a money game for them, but being in couch is a nightmare for the passengers. But, pretty sure they don't care.
Little planes have some very nice advantages. No security, no luggage check (other than Jeff reminding me that we can't take everything in my closet!) and most of the time no passengers. I am the chief flight attendant on our flights. I bring a bag full of non melting food. Nobody wants to stare down at the end of the day a pile of chocolate goo at the bottom of your bag. We listen to music while we fly and it's peaceful in the sky. When we fly through clouds, which is often, since we don't fly as high as commercial planes do, I always (and this is going to sound pretty stupid) look for my Dad and Wendy. I don't know why they'd be sitting on a cloud, but I look anyway and I generally tear up from my love for them.
The plane crash this week was horrific. Unfortunately, there were few survivors. When a plane does go down, everybody automatically looks to the pilot to see if he had made some kind of error. I guess that's natural. But I reminded of a flight home from Hawaii that after leaving Honolulu turned back a short time after take off. Turns out it was something to do with the luggage compartment. We waited an endless amount of time before we could reboard if we choosed to do so. Jeff and boarded the plane, which was by this time had many empty seats to choose from, as most people would not get back on the plane. The reason we did? We were sure that the pilot flying the plane didn't have some kind of death wish and would crash on purpose. This flight was way before people boarded planes, who took over the cockpit and did in fact crash on purpose.
Here's some statistics. In 2016 it looks like there were 18 commercial plane crashes, compared to 13 in 2015. Understand, that count doesn't include small planes such as ours. While I don't believe the numbers are completely accurate, the information I could find says there were 43 crashes over the course of two years that involved small planes. I think that numbers small, but it's difficult to find exact data when looking around on the Internet.
The type of plane we fly, a Cirrus which has an onboard built-in parachute for the plane, as over the years saved countless lives. Knowing that while we're flying, if something did go wrong, we could deploy that parachute and land safely (or at least more safely) gives me great peace of mind.
Our plane is similar to the plane in the picture:
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Nicely done!
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