How safe is plane travel?

Question

Is it really safer than travelling by car? Are the safety statistics manipulated by airlines?

Answer 1

the cruise is safe. the landing - now that's another story........

Answer 2

The best way to find out that how safe the planes really are is by actually sitting in a one or more than once. Otherwise please visit google.co.uk and type in wikipedia then in that website search on different airliners e.g. british airways, air canada, air india, emirates and read their section on accidents and see for yourself how much the travelling on planes has improved. I think it has improved a lot. Below is a link of one of the airliner which shows that over the years, the aircrafts are being more safer to fly in as number of crashes and big failures are very minor or not to be even seen these days.

Answer 3

It is safer to fly but you have to be careful how you look at the statistics.

Here's a quote from a Boeing airline site: "In fact, fewer people have died in commercial airplane accidents in America over the past 60 years than are killed in U.S. auto accidents in a typical three-month period. "

That is a true statement, but depending on how you measure, there are differences in HOW MUCH safer flying is when compared to riding in automobiles. The good news is that no matter how you measure it, flying is a LOT more safe.

Consider the fact that when riding in an airline, as compared to a car, you typically have an experienced, trained professional person at the wheel who is (usually) not drunk, is not 16 years old, not talking on a cellphone, is following precise operational rules, not being distracted by passengers in the back seat, has a co-pilot to help, is paid to do a good job, and doesn't have to deal with other idiot drivers around him. No wonder it's safer.

Answer 4

It is statistically the safest form of travel if you take into account deaths per passenger per mile.
However, as you don't get off the plane after 20 miles, and share it with many passengers, if you calculate the statistics for deaths per trip, then it isn't the safest. However in both cases it is safer than travelling by railway or by coach/bus.

Answer 5

I don't think they're manipulated by them. Car crashes aren't usually very publicized unless they're really bad, but there are many car crashes every single day all over the country. Heck, I've been involved in or witness to 4 accidents in car myself! The thing is, if you're in a car accident, you're much more likely to survive than an airplane accident. An airplane crashing is much bigger news than a car because a ton of people usually die at once. Morbid facination for news casters I guess. But there are millions of people that travel by air every day. I've been in planes too many times to count, and I've never been in a plane crash, nor even had a close call. Yeah, flying is scary, and if something goes wrong, your chances of dying are higher, but I think you're more likely to get in a car accident...

Answer 6

Yes, both manipulated and unmanipulated stats have proven it over & over again! As for air terrorism, reserchers have come to a reassuring conclusion..
In their analysis, the researchers considered scheduled domestic passenger operations of 10 major U.S. airlines and travel by cars, light trucks, vans and sport utility vehicles on rural interstate highways—the main type of roadway that would be used as an alternative to flying and a type of road that is particularly safe per distance traveled. Their calculations showed that driving the length of a typical nonstop flight—1,157 km or 719 miles—is 65 times as risky as flying. In fact, "for this type of flying to become as risky as driving, disastrous airline incidents on the scale of those of Sept. 11 would have to occur about once a month," said Sivak, head of UMTRI's Human Factors Division.

Answer 7

Plane travel is definitely safer than car if you go by accidents per passenger mile. However, I have always thought that a better statistic would be accidents per trip/flight.

Answer 8

Put it this way think of th last time you heared of a car crash on the news compared to the last time you heared of a plane crash but now think of it this way its actually equal not safer but not more dangrous car crashes are more survivable in some cases plane crashes aren't some times but that is changeing cheers

Answer 9

Travelling by plane is much safer. Car crashes happenen every day but planes crash only once in a blue moon.

Answer 10

100 % until it leaves the run way, then its all down to the gods, and the pilot, and the navigator, and the man that put the petrol in, and the bloke coming the other way in another aeroplane . Safer on the floor, you dont have as far to fall before you stop.

Answer 11

No, simply by the number of people on a flight and the flights per day makes it safer, statistically. Sit over the wings in a plan, statistically it is the safest place to sit.