Data & methodology

Where the data comes from

Aircraft accident and incident histories are compiled from public investigation records (NTSB and equivalent international agencies) and public reporting. Airline certification and oversight context comes from ICAO audit programs, IOSA registration status, and EU air-safety listings.

Live airport weather is fetched directly from NOAA’s Aviation Weather Center (METAR observations, typically updated hourly). Live aircraft positions come from the OpenSky Network. Our route turbulence forecast is computed by us from NOAA GFS model winds at cruise altitude (via the Open-Meteo API), sampled along the route’s actual great-circle path — it is a model forecast, labeled as such.

What we refuse to do

We do not publish numbers we cannot source. In our June 2026 audit we removed per-airport “incident rates” and average-crosswind figures that could not be verified, and we labeled every estimate as an estimate. When a panel has no real data behind it, it says so — the gap is the honest answer.

Safety scores summarize public records; they are context, not predictions. No tool can predict an individual flight, and anyone claiming otherwise is selling something.

How often things update

Live weather: every ~15 minutes (cached METARs). Live tracking: ~30 seconds while you watch a flight. Reference datasets (aircraft types, carriers, airports): reviewed and expanded continuously; whistleblower and regulatory report listings carry their last-review date directly in the interface.

Who this is for

ihateflying exists for nervous flyers. The product decision behind every page: anxiety shrinks when the unknown becomes known. We show the actual record — usually reassuring, occasionally uncomfortable, always sourced.

Questions, corrections, or a dataset we should add? Tell us — the site improves fastest when users point at what’s missing.