Originally Posted by
iPilot
I remember hearing a long time back that there has never been a fatal accident in a E-145. Seems far fetched but does anyone know for sure?
None that I know of.
Originally Posted by
iPilot
As for the 737, I highly doubt it considering they had all those rudder hard-over accidents. Still pretty darn good record considering how long they've been flying!
The advantage of an old model is that all the bugs have been worked out. The rudder servos have long-since been replaced with a new design (well maybe not in africa). Ideally you'd want to fly on a recently (but no too recently) built airplane whose design has been around for a long time, with a lengthy production run, and no known current issues.
The 73 qualifies, the bus does not (current issues).
Also you have to consider relative length of service and production run when comparing models...the ERJ might not look so good if the fleet had the same number of hours as the 73 fleet!
Remember the worlds safest commercial airplane, with a decades-long perfect record? The concorde went from first to worst in about 7 minutes. Turns out it had all kinds of design issues, but the low production run and low utilization meant that it took a long time for a fatal accident to result. Ultimately 7% of the fleet was lost...that's not a good number for a commercial plane. The space shuttle lost 20%...