A small plane crash near Minneapolis kills North Dakota state legislator and the pilot

It definitely does sound like we lost a real one. My friend went to Purdue to become a pilot and we went to Fort Lauderdale our senior year. We rented one of these planes and flew down the coastline over Miami and back. It was simultaneously the coolest and scariest experience ever. I would still go up with him again since he's an excellent pilot and I've been a part of seeing his career grow every time he advanced to a bigger plane. There was one moment less than 15 seconds into takeoff while climbing that we dropped at least a few feet because of turbulence. I just focused on my friend's demeanor to determine if I should be worried or not. My other friend turned his hand purple because he had it a seatbelt wrapped around it but he wouldn't let go. I don't think he will ever get in any plane again

Paul Wellstone vibes.

A family member owned one. He took me up about a dozen times. He was crazy obsessive about maintenance and his preflight checklist. To my knowledge he never had an in flight problem. I recall a couple weeks where he shut it all down during preflight and took a rental car home.

Yeah, they happen all the time and usually don't make the news. This one did simply because it involved a politician.

To be fair that’s kinda a survivorship bias type thing. Most crashes involve single prop small planes because most planes are single prop small planes. Outside of airliners I guess, but they’re built with waaaaaaay more tolerances, better trained pilots and are pretty much constantly inspected.

It seems that way because there are far more private single engine planes flying than commercial multi-engine aircraft. Most general aviation mishaps are caused by pilot error, with comparatively and predominantly low experience pilots. Unfortunately there is a tendency for complacency when it comes to continually practicing emergency flight procedures, with too many recreational pilots assuming “one and done” after limited formal flight instruction. While it’s almost always advantageous to have more than one engine, with sufficient training and proficiency a single-engine plane without that single engine fully operational can still safely land; gliders do it all the time. So while single-engine is not necessarily an inherently unsafe aircraft design, there are many contributing external factors that can make it appear to be. Having said that, the one time I was a passenger in a private plane with engine failure and fire that successfully completed a declared emergency landing at Santa Monica airport with firetrucks, sirens, foam, the whole enchilada, I was bigly thankful that it was a Cessna 414 with two engines, with a multi commercially rated, cool calm and collected pilot with many hours/years of training and experience. Still my knees knocked for a good 30 minutes afterwards and I bummed an indescribably therapeutic cigarette from an airport worker after having quit for many years.

A friend of mine lost a parent recently to a crash in a similar plane. Scary.

Regulations on GA (general aviation) and commercial are wildly different. While GA is strict, it is a lot more lenient on things like inspections and repair when compared to commercial.

And bad weather

About 150 people die every day in US car crashes. To put that in perspective, if you live in a town of 7,000, that’s one person per year. In a city of 70,000, that’s about 10 a year. In a metro city of 700,000, that’s about 100 per year. In a metro of 7 million, that’s 1,000 per year, or 3 a day. (And sarcastically, those are almost always single-engine vehicles 😋) They happen so frequently that they rarely make the news. This makes other activities seem insanely dangerous by comparison.

There's a reason insurance companies don't really cover them.

So an ultralight is more dangerous than a super unstable acrobatic plane?

Those can only hit non moving forests. They don't have the ability to hit objects in motion. 

[deleted]

Wtf has happened to Listnook, every single thread is conspiracy bullshit. Sometimes planes crash.

There is zero indication that this crash is due to a lack of atc

Because crashing into the ground immediately after takeoff is due to a lack of controllers telling the pilot to stay in the air?

Yeah thats not what this is, like at all

Not only did we not fire any controllers, but ATC played no role whatsoever in the crash. And GA aircraft operate into and out of uncontrolled airports *all the f****** time*. Please just don’t comment when you don’t know what you’re talking about.

Small aircraft just like this crash weekly in the US and also are mostly uncontrolled traffic (aka air traffic control staffing almost never has anything to do with small aircraft crashes) For instance, here is the NTSB database of accidents and incidents. If you select the last full month here (March 1 to April 1), you get twenty fatal accidents. There are many more that instead result in serious injuries, light injuries, or only property / plane damage. [NTSB CAROL](https://my.ntsb.gov/aviation)

Democratic lawmaker killed in crash? Better to look at the CIA over ATC.

How many air traffic controllers were fired and when?