Media and political reality today are designed to scare. Be afraid-be very afraid that something terrible will happen to you or someone you know. The motive is usually to sell something or to advance a position. Ultimately, everything seems to come down to economics. Human ability to accurately judge risk is notoriously inaccurate, especially when it relates to airplanes falling from the sky and smacking an innocent bystander. One of the most common trumped-up excuses to close an airport is the fear that an aircraft will crash into a building nearby with resulting fatalities to people on the ground. That is also why there are-or should be-runway safety zones around airports, because occasionally there is a miscue. Unfortunately, in way too many cases, ignorance or greed has led to poor zoning practices and airports that have been in place for decades are encroached upon.
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