I’d say that a single event like that should not affect your priors much, not enough to reconsider your travel plans. Just like you don’t reconsider your driving plans after hearing about yet another car accident on the radio (unless its aftermath directly impedes your trip). However, if you learn about two or more accidents in close succession, this should give you a pause, since it challenges the model of random uncorrelated events.
That’s the problem with OP: yes, in some strict sense, there will be an epsilon increase after a plane disappearing. But is this increase remotely relevant to any decision? I strongly suspect that if one attempted to formalize it, the contribution of one MH370 incident out of a century of aviation is so small it’s overriden by small details of the prior or model or approximations.
I’d say that a single event like that should not affect your priors much, not enough to reconsider your travel plans. Just like you don’t reconsider your driving plans after hearing about yet another car accident on the radio (unless its aftermath directly impedes your trip). However, if you learn about two or more accidents in close succession, this should give you a pause, since it challenges the model of random uncorrelated events.
Not by much, though, since there’s Poisson clumping (do planes crash 2 at a time?).
That’s the problem with OP: yes, in some strict sense, there will be an epsilon increase after a plane disappearing. But is this increase remotely relevant to any decision? I strongly suspect that if one attempted to formalize it, the contribution of one MH370 incident out of a century of aviation is so small it’s overriden by small details of the prior or model or approximations.