Planes don't have to be in perfect working order to be safe you can lose ~1,500,000 of those 2,000,000 parts and be fine. The redundancy is what makes it safe.
this post was submitted on 05 May 2026
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I’ve always wondered where the redundant wings are hidden
They've got 2 extra small ones at the back.
Randall's timing is impeccable sometimes
The wing itself is not redundant, just like the body. It has tens of thousands of rivets though.
Redundancy helps, but high precision engineering and massive testing means we hardly ever see a plane landing with only one of its two engines working
Akin to that old astronaut joke, “My life depended on 150,000 pieces of equipment – each bought from the lowest bidder.”
I'm in awe that you are safer every time you get in a plane than every time you get in a car .
That's what happens when you leave operating the industrial death machines to the professionals. Its insane how much our society relies on regular people operating 2 ton death machines. Regular people.
They don't just leave it to the professionals though: there's always a lot of interest in any aircraft crash investigation which helps drive the motivation to employ all the professionals that make it safe.
People can be so dramatic. We've flown aircraft for nearly a century and in all that time, not one, ever got stuck in the sky. Every single one of them landed. That's an 100% succes rate!
I get, people are scared about crashes, but we have plenty of examples where the aircraft hit the ground at a very high speed and not a single passager complained afterwards. Again reaching 100% custumer statisfaction at even the worst landings.
Doesn't help that the airport posting this is mine