Third Quarter "In Memoriam" Pilot Deaths Significant
Rechecking the facts which had been fact-checked
At the end of December of 2021, there was a big hoopla about the number of pilot deaths, taken from a page where they are honored in an In Memoriam inside of the Air Line Pilots Magazine put out by ALPA (Air Line Pilots Association).
It supposedly got fact-checked and debunked, but I’m “rebunking” (or “unbunking”) it here. There is a striking increase in deaths once you enter the third quarter of 2021, just as Ed Dowd had reported on, after examining death claims data from big insurance companies.
Here are the notes:
[click to enlarge]
From July of 2021 to September of 2021 (third quarter), there had been 94 pilot deaths memorialized in the magazine issue which was the Oct/Nov 2021 issue. That’s almost double the typical deaths reported for the third quarter, and the chi-squared test at bottom left shows it is statistically significant.
Cell L74 shows that 39 death reports for July 2021 — a record for all 4 of the years — had been reported in the two-month time-window.
Besides being vital for travel, pilots are arguably the most important factor in national defense. If someone is intentionally depleting US pilots, it’d be important to find out why. It is something that an enemy of the United States would try to do.
How I was able to obtain an objective comparison
To find the matching issues for 2018, 2019, and 2020 — I searched high and low and found a way to view them, but I am wary to share the source (the magazine appears to only be available to subscribers).
The debunk link at top shows the page that circulated on the internet at the end of 2021, but prior to 2021, the magazine was monthly. Deaths are reported as they roll in, so that two months of deaths reported from August and September make it into the Oct/Nov issue, but not deaths reported after.
This means that the September and October issues of prior years are required to match it up — with two months of reporting, but no deaths reported after September ones (which show up in the October issue).
Reference
[Ed Dowd book showing that it was the third quarter of 2021 when all hell broke lose] — Cause Unknown. Ed Dowd. https://www.skyhorsepublishing.com/9781510776395/cause-unknown/