Hello
Prophet,
*
That's a very good prediction I think I'll improve it and use it for myself.
Big air disasters can be very newsworthy and so later being able to say you predicted one would be a nice feather in anyone's cap.
However they are also more frequent than people like to think. We've got subject ourselves to these risks so lets downplay them please. This means that a sufficiently vague prediction can come up trumps and appear more impressive than it should be. This is a qood quality for this sort of game.
By the way, these are specifically predictions for 2012 you do know that don't you? If the events you describe haven't happened by 31st December then you've lost.
You can always renew your prediction here for the 2013 thread but the 2012 prediction will have failed. Eventually of course something like this will happen. It's getting the timing right that counts.
What I particularly like about your prediction is the additional specifics that don't really affect the probability. With take off and landing being by far the riskiest part of air travel the bit about "many on the ground" is almost a given. Even if you find that your prediction comes true except the crash happens at sea you can scour the news for an image of recovered bodies laid out on the ground and claim that as what you saw. That's the great thing about the whole "vision" shtick. You can later claim that the divine "vision" you were sent was accurate but it was your mortal interpretation of it that was fallible.
The same goes for all lost. Survivors of mid air collisions aren't easy to come by. Chances are that near enough everybody will die.
Given the events of the 1977 Tenerife airport disaster
WP and the 1996 Charkhi Dadri mid-air collision
WP it would seem that two airliners collide every 20 years or so. Perhaps we're about due? A one in twenty a hit here will not really be statistically speaking very significant. One in twenty is often used as a cutoff point for a statistical wow factor. Yet if this year does roll a critical fail on it's air safety check, Joe Public will be far more impressed with your prediction than the statisticians here.
Now many will point out that air safety measure do increase and that collision detection systems in particular make the skies are much safer today than at any time in the past. This is true and if you're an individual passenger air travel is getting safer and safer all the time. Yet if you're looking for an accident in any particular year the increase in air traffic seems to counter this.
However I think that you'd be better to construct your prediction to account as just as good a hit for two airliners colliding but equally applicable to an airliner colliding with a different type of aircraft. These often have less stringent insurance requirements and so looking at the near miss stats they're are far more likely. I'm even expressing a bit of doubt about the other aircraft. Often the causes of crashes can be up for debate so if there's room for doubt I can claim to know what the investigators can't find out. I can always remove the punctuation later if I get the full hit. I've also tossed in some additional detail that again fits the bill every time but also allows me to construct a sentence that differentiates between the aircraft without making it obvious why:
I see the safety record of a popular airliner tarnished damaged when it is involved in an accident (with another aircraft?). I see hundreds of bodies on the ground.
What do you think? If you're right I still get just as big a hit in the popular imagination but I've allowed wiggle room in case there's survivors. I also get a big hit if an Airliner crashes with a private helicopter, glider or what have you. I get a trickier hit for a single airliner crash.
To explain why that's important have a look at a list of airliner crashes with over 200 dead.
1974|Turkish Airlines Flight 981|Single Airliner|Over Land
1977|Tenerife Disaster|2 Airliner Collission|Over Land
1978|Air India Flight 855|Single Airliner|Over Sea
1979|American Airlines Flight 191|Single Airliner|Over Land
1980|Saudia Flight 16|Single Airliner|Over Land
1985|Japan Airlines Flight 123|Single Airliner|Over Land
1985|Arrow Air Flight 1285|Single Airliner|Over Land
1991|Air New Zealand Flight 901|Single Airliner|Over Land
1991|Lauda Air Flight 004|Singe Airliner|Over Land
1994|China Airlines Flight 140|Single Airliner|Over Land
1996|Charkhi Dadri|2 Airliner Collission|Over Land
1996|Air Africa crash|Single Airliner|Over Land
1996|TWA Flight 800|Single Airliner|Over Sea
1997|Garuda Indonesia Flight 152|Single Airliner|Over Land
1997|Korean Air Flight 801|Single Airliner|Over Land
1998|Swissair Flight 111|Single Airliner|Over Sea
1998|China Airlines Flight 676|Single Airliner|Over Land
1999|EgyptAir Flight 990|Single Airliner|Over Sea
2001|American Airlines Flight 587|Single Airliner|Over Land
2002|China Airlines Flight 611|Single Airliner|Over Land
2003|Iran Ilyushin Il-76 crash|1 Airliner (and other craft?)|Over Land
2009|Air France Flight 447|Single Airliner|Over Sea
This doesn't include planes that have been bombed or shot down.
While you're at it note how often the "bodies on the ground" bit hits and saves me from having to quote mine myself by stripping the second sentence.
So if I get the 1 in twenty I can claim a rare event. If not there's still an high chance of claiming a big air crash of the sort that's unfortunately far more common. Roughly 60% chance every year. And that's only the one's with over 200 dead. With a more liberal interpretation of "hundreds" then there's over a hundred more crashes I can claim over the same period. In fact the only time in the last few decades in which there hasn't been an air crash involving over a hundred dead seems to be last year. (unless wiki has missed one) That 2011 exception could be gold dust. If someone comes back with a that sort of thing happens every year I can demand proof from the previous year. Brilliant!
* PS check out the definition of the word Prophet. Are you really claiming one of these definitions. And calling yourself
the Prophet, it's a good thing all Muslims have such thick skins.
ETA on second thoughts tarnished implies that the safety record was pristine to start with, damaged is going to be a given.
ennies will still have value but will no longer be minted. Note that this measure was a COMPLETE secret to everyone, yet I foresaw it successfully. There is no retrofitting or poetic license here. This one's an on-the-nose hit.
