Russian hockey team fatal crash raises new questions of safety

Posted 11/09/2011

The tragic crash that killed 43 out of the 45 on board a hockey team plane in Russia raised again a long-time question: how safe is air travel and if your plane crashes, how likely are is it to be fatal?

“Airplane crash data tells us that we actually have little to worry about,” writes attorney Jim Lewis in blognetwork.

Last year, commercial airlines traveled over 15 million hours of flight time with more than 10 million flights. The airlines carried more than 700 million passengers.

For all of last year, only 30 accidents were reported; ten of these involved damage only to the airplane where no one was injured. Another 15 crashes led to some serious injury to at least one passenger, but no fatalities.

“Only five of these incidents were classified as major or serious, involving either at least one fatality or major damage to the aircraft,” Lewis writes.

For the average American, the annual risk of being killed in a plane crash is about 1 in 11 million.

“That’s miniscule compared to the risk of being involved in a motor vehicle crash, which is about 1 in 5,000. Flying, in fact, is safer than most other forms of transportation—including bicycling,” Lewis writes.

But what flyers often don’t consider: an airplane crash doesn’t necessarily lead to a fatality. Airline records show the vast majority of passengers, or 95.7 percent, involved in some of plane accident survive.

By David Wilkening

 

Originally published 11 Sep 2011 at: http://rss.feedsportal.com/c/398/f/5923/s/182fa365/l/0L0Stravelmole0N0Cstories0C11493190Bphp0Dmpnlog0F1/story01.htm