Ooops

Automation has risks. The crash of Air France Flight 447 in the Atlantic Ocean in June 2009 that claimed 228 lives occurred after a failure of the Airbus A330-203’s automated system. Tragedies of that sort, however, are the exceedingly rare exception to the rule. According to Boeing, close to 80 percent of commercial airline accidents are caused by pilot error. So if Trump meant to suggest that passenger air travel is becoming more dangerous as automation increases, the facts don’t back him up.

According to data compiled each year by the Aviation Safety Network (ASN), the number of international commercial airline accidents has been steadily declining for the past 45 years, down to 18 last year from 73 in 1972.

  Vox

But what happened in the 80s? It was Ronald Reagan making airliners great, wasn't it? MAGA!

In fact, in January 2018, Trump himself tried to take credit for the fact that there were no commercial aviation-related deaths in the US in 2017.

Of course he did.

there hasn’t been a fatal commercial plane crash for more than a decade — since February 2009. (That’s not to say there haven’t been deadly incidents on planes — last April a woman was killed after a fan blade on a Southwest Airlines 737 broke loose.)

He didn't mention that.

Trump’s boast was misleading in at least three respects. First, in claiming he had been “very strict on Commercial Aviation,” the president was referring to a vague “Air Traffic Control Reform Initiative” that contained a proposal to take air traffic control responsibilities away from the FAA, and instead hand them over to a nonprofit entity that would likely be controlled by the major airlines. That proposal was widely criticized by industry groups, lacked support among Republicans, and was quickly ditched by members of Congress.

Secondly, in 2017, there were zero accident deaths on commercial passenger jets anywhere in the world, not just in the US. And finally, Trump was trying to credit himself for a streak that actually began the month after President Barack Obama took office.

Christ, what a dick.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.