# Survivorship Bias Plane

Survivorship Bias Plane shows a diagram of a World War II aircraft covered in red dots marking where returning bombers took hits, originally added to Wikipedia by editor McGeddon on November 12th, 2016[2]. By October 2020, X and Reddit posters were setting it beside corruption charts, Trump approval polls, and online survey results to flag the missing data[6].

## Origin
The math story goes back to Abraham Wald, a Hungarian-born statistician who studied Royal Air Force bombers returning from missions over Germany[1]. The military wanted to armor the areas most hit by anti-aircraft fire; Wald argued the opposite, since bullet-free zones on returning planes marked exactly where hits had downed aircraft and left them out of the data[1].

Survivorship Bias Plane entered meme circulation on November 12th, 2016, when Wikipedia editor McGeddon added the red-dotted plane image to the Survivorship Bias article[2]. The diagram likely borrows from a 2005 illustration by designer Cameron Moll[3]. Uploaded for an encyclopedia entry, it drifted into reaction-image territory as users began pasting it onto charts and claims whose samples obviously missed people[5].

- **Platform:** Wikipedia (image upload) / X and Reddit (viral spread)
- **Creator:** Unknown
- **Date:** 2016

## Overview
Captions apply the WWII story to any dataset that only counts survivors. A typical post sets the plane next to a chart, poll, or self-help tweet with a sarcastic note about who the sample left out[6]. The red dots represent the obvious data in the joke, while the empty areas stand in for everything the study never saw.

On X, @dysmemic set the Survivorship Bias Plane beside a world corruption diagram, suggesting the map only shows corruption that investigators actually detected[6]. User @seecurity captioned the same plane with a line about an online survey finding every student had the required hardware for remote classes, pointing out that students without hardware could not answer[8].

## How to Use
Posts typically place the Survivorship Bias Plane next to a claim, chart, or poll result, with a caption that points out which group never made it into the sample. Common conventions include matching the plane with a corruption index, a success-story thread, or a survey that only reached people with the thing being measured[6].

## Frequently Asked Questions
### What is Survivorship Bias Plane?
A diagram of a WWII aircraft covered in red dots at points where returning planes took bullets, used as a reaction image for any dataset that only counts the people who made it back[2].

### Where did Survivorship Bias Plane come from?
Wikipedia editor McGeddon added the diagram to the Survivorship Bias article on November 12th, 2016; the underlying math story comes from statistician Abraham Wald's World War II work for the RAF[1].

### What does Survivorship Bias Plane mean?
It points out that any study, poll, or dataset counting only survivors misses the critical cases that never came back, so conclusions drawn from the sample can be exactly backward[1].

### How do you use Survivorship Bias Plane?
Posters set the plane next to a chart or claim and caption it to flag the missing data, often targeting polls, corruption indexes, or self-help tweets[6].

### Is Survivorship Bias Plane still popular?
The image resurfaced through 2023, with @Duderichy's May 2023 post about college advice collecting over 9,000 likes in three months[9].

## References
1. [https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2010/09/counterintuitive-world/](<https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2010/09/counterintuitive-world/>)
2. [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Survivorship_bias&oldid=749089960](<https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Survivorship_bias&oldid=749089960>)
3. [https://twitter.com/cameronmoll/status/1317661364631097345](<https://twitter.com/cameronmoll/status/1317661364631097345>)
4. [https://www.facebook.com/scott.osborn.71/posts/pfbid02tWf38KronpdTkQxq1hQo3ZuwBDoy1NFdSxGvJFjiBZsHtaH9Qz7eK37TxcFKZfeMl](<https://www.facebook.com/scott.osborn.71/posts/pfbid02tWf38KronpdTkQxq1hQo3ZuwBDoy1NFdSxGvJFjiBZsHtaH9Qz7eK37TxcFKZfeMl>)
5. [https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/survivorship-bias-plane](<https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/survivorship-bias-plane>)
6. [https://twitter.com/dysmemic/status/1312309954989023232](<https://twitter.com/dysmemic/status/1312309954989023232>)
7. [https://www.reddit.com/r/neoliberal/comments/jdgjcc/republican_approval_of_trump_at_an_all_time_high/](<https://www.reddit.com/r/neoliberal/comments/jdgjcc/republican_approval_of_trump_at_an_all_time_high/>)
8. [https://twitter.com/BruceKeith/status/1313862128235757569](<https://twitter.com/BruceKeith/status/1313862128235757569>)
9. [https://twitter.com/Duderichy/status/1660291386883571714](<https://twitter.com/Duderichy/status/1660291386883571714>)

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Source: https://meme.com/memes/survivorship-bias-plane
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