Assuming UFOs exist, would they be likely to have crashes and mishaps?

I think if we assume UFOs exist, we can assume anything else we want to about them as well. I’m not saying they do or do not exist. All I’m saying is that without a common reality to ground it on, we can assume anything we want.
We can assume their autopilots are perfect. We can assume they burn up to dust on improper reentry. The skies the limit, a-ha-ha.

We got pretty good at avoiding crashes since the Roswell debacle. We also told the pilots to not take drugs prior to a mission.

As likely as our crafts, which fairly often have crashes in the absolute scheme of things.

The physical laws of the universe are universal. Many definitions of complex systems express a condition of numerous elements in that system and numerous forms of relationships among the elements. It is fair to assume that the laws of complexity are universal as well. A living cell is extremely complex and mistakes do happen. Starships are extremely complex and mistakes are bound to happen, no matter how intelligent the species that build them.

If they use my local mechanic, yes. Then the debris simply vaporizes.

@mattbrowne why do they need to be complex? Why can’t they be the glass shpere with the tree in it that Hugh Jackman rode in The Fountain?

@drhat77 – Because they are meant to carry living beings or carry equipment capable of sending information to distant intelligent beings, don’t they? Of course, if you consider photons from distant stars to be flying objects, well, good news, they are already here.

We know the probability for human error. What’s a good guess as to the probability of inhuman error? As @drhat77 notes, if we are going to assume something exists when we don’t know it does, what’s the harm in assuming it’s crash and failure proof, never runs out of power, and is piloted by beings that have eternal life free of any kind of medical emergencies that might cause a human pilot to crash?

I doubt they could come so far without the extremely perfected technology to avoid accidents. But Murphy’s Law applies to aliens as well as ourselves, and Johnston’s Law states that “Murphy’s Law IS ALWAYS in effect and IT CAN AND WILL affect YOU.” (Or in this case, THEM.) So, yes, they could have boo-boos.

UFO’s normally crash when they exceeded their service plans from the Area 51 dealership.

@mattbrowne @kritiper Both of you are applying human understanding to what may be well beyond your ability to comprehend. Consider that we are conjecturing about travel over huge distances, but that another species may have evolved beyond our 3 dimensional space into something that travels without 3 dimensional limitation, and what is bound under our understanding to be very complex may have been reduced to something simple.

Consider the complexity of an Atlas rocket and Apollo capsule compared to the space shuttle. We do much now that would have been difficult to even comprehend in 1968. Now apply that extension to the ability of an alien that is able to travel through interstellar space.

@zenvelo That’s a good point. They may just be tesseracting all other the place, sodomizing hillbillies and turning cattle inside out. In fact, that could be what a crashed tesseract looks like: “Hey, Cletus, you got something back there…”

UFO stands for unidentified flying object. You don’t need to assume UFOs exist.
Extraterrestrial ships can crash for the reasons @mattbrowne explained.

I am not sure that you fully understand what “Murphy’s Law” is. “Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong.” Especially if given sufficient opportunities. It goes beyond human understanding and into the realm of pure chance.

The more technologically advanced a species becomes, yes the more complex the technology becomes, and up to a certain point the risk of catastrophic failure of that technology becomes as well.
But I submit to you, that there will be a point in their development, that their technological prowess will be so advanced, that their technology will be self correcting and self healing and full of redundancy, imitating life itself, and minimising the risk of failure.
As a healthy human being, how many times in your life have you just fallen over, out of the blue, and stopped working?

@ragingloli it only takes once

The most difficult part of flying an aircraft is taking off and landing. That is where the majority of errors occur. If the UFO only intends to survey Earth, then I can see it easily avoiding fatal errors, although they cannot be ruled out entirely, since, as pointed out above, Murphy’s law always applies. If they try to land, then it would be far more likely for something to go wrong.

@zenvelo – It might be beyond our ability to understand, but certain facts remain. The escape velocities required to leave a star system are significant (more than 600 km/s for our sun). Accelerating whatever ship (even one beyond our comprehension) requires a large amount of energy. Utilizing this energy requires some kind of complex technology (even one beyond our comprehension).

Well naturally they would make mistakes, eventually, but i hardly ever would think they would crash next to your house… :)

In my experience in technology and science, Murphy’s Law has never been disproven. Juxtapose that with my answer above.

Most problems would probably occur do to on-board computer/tech type automated system malfunctions rather than individual operator type screw-ups.