Airplane crash

The accuracy of absolute risk results depends on (1) whether all the significant contributors to risk have been analyzed, (2) the realism of the mathematical models used to predict failure characteristics and accident phenomena, and (3) the statistical uncertainty associated with the various input data. The achievable accuracy of absolute risk results is very dependent on the type of hazard being analyzed. In studies where the dominant risk contributors can be calibrated with ample historical data (e.g., the risk of an engine failure causing an airplane crash), the uncertainty can be reduced to a few percent. However, many authors of published studies and other expert practitioners have recognized that uncertainties can be greater than 1 to 2 orders of magnitude in studies whose major contributors are rare, catastrophic events. 

Briefly describe factors tliat should be considered in an accident arising from an airplane crash. 

For anotlier example of the use of Bayes theorem, suppose that the probability is 0.80 tliat an airplane crash due to structural failure is diagnosed correctly. Suppose, in addition, tliat tlie probability is 0.30 tliat an airplane crash not due to structural failure is incorrectly attributed to structural failure. If 35% of all airplane crashes are due to structural failure, wliat is tlie probability that an airplane crash was due to structural failure, given tliat it lias been so diagnosed Let Ai be tlie event tliat structural failure is tlie cause of tlie airplane crash. Let A2 be tlie event tliat tlie cause is otlier tlian structural failure. Let B be tlie event tliat tlie airplane crash is diagnosed as being due to structural failure. Tlien... 

Tlierefore tlie diagnosis of structural failure revises its probability as the cause of the airplane crash upward from 0.35 to 0.59. 

Suppose, for example tliat in a certain country the average number of airplane crashes per year is 2.5. What is the probability of 4 or more crashes during tlie next year Substituting X = 2.5 and t = 1 in Eq. (20.5.5) yields... 

Dr. Richard Schweet later joined the faculty at the University of Kentucky in Lexington. His highly promising career in biochemistry ended way too soon in a fatal commuter airplane crash on his way to Louisville. He was an excellent mentor and 1 remain indebted to him for his help and attention during my undergraduate years at Caltech. 

BANTING, SIR FREDERICK (1891-1941). A nalive ol Onlario, Canada, Banting did his most important work in enducrinulogy. His brilliant research culminated in the preparation of the antidiabetic hormone that he called insulin, derived from the isles of Langerhans in the pancreas. He received the Nobel prize in medicine for this wurk together with John MacLeod of the University of Toronto. In 1930, the Banting Institute was founded in Toronto. lie was killed in an airplane crash. 

Goepp, Jr.,1 a book entitled The Chemistry of the Carbohydrates. Because of Dr. Isbell s withdrawal and Dr. Goepp s death in an airplane crash in 1946, Pigman was left to complete the book alone. This book,2 published in 1948, was destined to become the standard reference on the subject, and to establish Pigman as an authority on sugar chemistry. It was to be followed, in 1957, by a multi-authored volume, The Carbohydrates, edited by Pigman its success prompted a second edition of The Carbohydrates, in four volumes, which he edited in collaboration with Derek Horton. 

A site-specific Phase 1 QRA for a baseline incineration system at Pueblo was prepared and published in 1998 (SAIC, 1998). The causes of potential accidents considered included failures of equipment, human error, and external phenomena such as earthquakes and airplane crashes. Intentional acts, such as sabotage, were not included, nor were nonagent health risks (which will be covered in the HRA). The Phase 1 QRA concluded that the probability of one or more public fatalities from operation of the baseline system is very much lower than the risk of storing the stockpile for 20 years. However, the probability of fatalities at Pueblo under either scenario was estimated to be very much lower than at the other baseline sites (Table 4-1). 

The 1970s saw the introduction of a very popular series of three television motion pictures, followed by a television series on the same theme The Six Million Dollar Man. The motion pictures and series starred Lee Majors as a test pilot whose airplane crashed, resulting in the loss of both legs, an arm, and an eye. Majors s character, Steve Austin, was rebuilt by a skilled physician named Dr. Rudy Wells using advanced biomedical body parts at a cost of 6 million (hence the name). In a follow-up series, Lindsay Wagner played Austin s counterpart, Jaime Sommers, in The Bionic Woman. Sommers was seriously injured in a parachute jump and, like Austin, is provided with a number of engineered body parts that give her extraordinary physical powers. 

Daugherty, L. A. (1997). Soil science contribution to an airplane crash investigation, Ruidoso, New Mexico. J. Forensic Sci. 42,401-405. 

A 44-year-old man was found dead after his Cessna airplane crashed in mountainous terrain. A gas chro-matography/mass spectrometer was used to conduct stereochemical analyses of metamfetamine and amfe-tamine present in the pilot s body. At autopsy the total concentration of amphetamines in the urine was 8.0 pg/ml and the blood concentration of metamfetamine was 1.13 pg/ml, enough to produce toxic effects that could have impaired his performance. 

Familiarity with a risk also skews the perception. Unfamiliar risks are not as acceptable and tend to be perceived to be as higher risks than familiar ones. The public tends to overestimate the risks of seldom occurring events and underestimate the risks of common, everyday risks. For example, the perceived risk of being in an automobile crash is perceived to be low compared to the risk of being in an airplane crash. In an automobile, the individual has a feeling of control, which allows the individual to feel safer than in an airplane where someone else is in control. 

Actions may fit into multiple categories. For example, the 9/11 terrorists misappropriated airplanes, crashed them into the World Trade Center and Pentagon, causing fire, mass casualties, and dismption of communications and financial market activity, not to mention hundreds of billions of dollars in military spending and the lives lost in subsequent military action. 

What do successful products and systems have in common The fact that people buy and use them is certainly a common attribute. However, sales are not a very useful measure for designers. In particular, using lack of sales as a way to uncover poor design choices is akin to using airplane crashes as a method of identifying design flaws—this method works, but the feedback provided is a bit late. 

Since the variable n represents subjective feelings, it is impossible to assign it an objective value. However, if a value of say 1.5 is given to n, then Eq. (1.3) for the two scenarios just discussed—the airplane crash and the highway fatalities— becomes Eqs. (1.4) and (1.5), respectively. 

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