This is driven almost entirely by a large increase in violent crime and suicides during the pandemic, not accidents.

Detroit is a ton wealthier than Athens. A better US comparison are small cities like Jacksonville Florida or Grand Rapids Michigan. Although GDP per capita in the US are also much higher.

Dense, historical, and not very wealthy cities in Europe look like this. IMHO it’s not awful, it’s just not what very very rich cities in the west look like.

The reality is that Detroit’s GDP is roughly $200 Billion per year, which is also roughly the GDP of all of Greece (and like 10x Athens).

Americans often have a pretty skewed impression of how wealthy (or not) other countries are based on non-economic metrics like high crime in inner cities.

For those who actually care, they’re making that statement because in Nebraska, if you hold an active CCW permit, you’ve already had your background checked with the locals, state, and Feds, so you do not have to wait on the NICS check (which takes more than 2 minutes).

But you still potentially need a handgun purchase permit ahead of time, too, and still need to fill out paperwork that seems like it’d take at least 120 seconds in practice.

I'm not this kind of pilot, but I'm pretty sure the issue is that ILS landing equipment in Worcester has been broken for months, so the plane OP needs is still in New York.

Here's the plane I think they intended to use: on Flightaware .

I have no idea how to link NOTAMs but they were issued on 8/10 and appear active...

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>!ORH 08/011 ORH NAV ILS RWY 29 DME u/S 2208101301-2304192000EST

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I have no idea why they're not fixing it or if this is a typical turn around time for this sort of repair.

EDIT: Oh man, it's literally the same flight as when this last came up.

This is close but it may be way more interesting than that. I listened to the ATC, briefly.

It sounds like the approach charts that Jetblue had for this require full instrument landing systems but that the distance-measuring radios (DMEs) have been out of service in Worcester for like a month. NOTAM reads:

!ORH 08/011 ORH NAV ILS RWY 29 DME u / S 2208101301-2304192000EST meaning "DME Unusable".

Worcester Tower said it was fine to try without this, and it sounds like the pilots tried a couple of times but weren't predisposed to taking risks when their paperwork says they needed the system that was broken.

So it was a combination of broken ILS, bad weather, and caution.

Disclaimer: not this kind of pilot.