Summary
A new AP-NORC poll shows that Americans’ confidence in air travel has declined after several fatal plane crashes in 2025.
Only 64% now believe flying is safe, down from 71% last year, while the number of those who feel it is unsafe rose by 12%.
Confidence in pilots, air traffic controllers, and the federal government has also dropped. Recent crashes, including a deadly collision over Washington, D.C., have fueled public concern.
Meanwhile, Trump has begun firing hundreds of FAA employees, raising further safety worries.
You’re mostly right, but your comment also assumes independent probabilities rather than correlated probabilities of danger. Sometimes multiple crashes can trace back to the same cause: one particular manufacturing defect on a model of aircraft sold thousands of times, one bad practice on air traffic control procedure, one bad actor targeting multiple aircraft, etc.
Purely hypothetically, as an example, if it turned out that there was a terrorist group targeting aircraft via anti aircraft missiles, then that group’s success at bringing down an airliner would actually worsen the odds of passengers on other aircraft, at least until we receive external information that the threat has passed.
One bad actor causing chaos amongst the staff entrusted with keeping airlines safe….
Exactly. Some of the fears that people have are about factors that affect all flights, not just the risk of a single pilot operating a single aircraft.
Flying is still safe and has a strong safety culture built into the industry independent of government regulation, that wouldn’t change overnight even if the government regulators change. But removing a slice of Swiss cheese is still bad, and cause for concern.
Also, Boeing notwithstanding…