What Is the Airplane With Red Dots Image About?

Ever seen that image of a plane covered in red dots? I've never understood what it meant so eventually I spent five minutes to learn what is it about.

The image is about survivorship bias (more on this later).

The red dots are bullet holes from planes that made it back in WWII. At first, people wanted to add armor where the red dots are.

But that’s actually the wrong move. Why? Because these planes survived those hits. The real danger zones are the places without red dots, like the engines and cockpit, because planes hit there didn’t make it back.

They’re missing from the picture entirely.

This is called survivorship bias—it happens when you only pay attention to the stuff that survived and ignore what didn’t. It tricks you into thinking you’re seeing the whole story when you’re actually missing the most important parts.