The old adage claims that you are more likely to be killed on your way to the airport than during the flight. Yet, in the past year, major airliners have crashed into the Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of Yemen, into a suburb in Buffalo, and yet another was forced to ditch in the Hudson River.
These crashes and near-misses all underline the danger associated with flying in large commercial jumbo jet airliners, but just how safe are they?
How Safe Are Jumbo-Jet Airliners?
Aircraft safety has increased substantially since the Second World War, as advancements in safety procedures, airplane construction, and crew training have come to the forefront.
The International Civil Aviation Organization, or ICAO, states that passengers boarding a plane have a 99.99% chance of surviving the flight. They found that in 2007, there were only 0.014 deaths for every 100 million passenger kilometres. And that is in spite of ever-rising air traffic numbers.
Airplanes and Lightening Strikes
Airplanes are designed to withstand lightening strikes, plain and simple. Their materials are designed to absorb the lightening and disperse it without causing any major damage. Statistics also show that there are only approximately two lightening strikes per year.
However, with new composite designs for airlines coming out in the next few years, further testing is needed to determine their exact effect with concern to lightening strikes.
Preventing Ice and Snow Buildup on Planes
Ice and snow can have serious effects on the performance of aircraft in the air. Planes are designed to prevent the accumulation of ice and snow by re-routing heat from the engines to the critical flight components of the plane, such as the wings and the rudders. The also use inflatable rubber "boots" on smaller planes to help break away any accumulated ice.
Bird Strikes and Airplane Safety
The biggest threat of a bird strike comes during the take-off and landing of a plane, because they are closest to the ground where birds may be nesting. Birds can be sucked into the engines or other critical airplane parts, causing problems of maintaining power or thrust.
Planes are designed to maintain thrust and power even in the event of a bird strike event. However, occasionally multiple birds, or very large birds can be sucked into the planes engine, and cause problems. The US Airways flight that was forced to ditch in the Hudson River in January 2009 was believed to have struck a bird, perhaps a Canadian Goose.
Is it Safe to Fly?
The airline industry attributes somewhere between 75% - 98% of all crashes to human error depending on the sector, with smaller, non-commercial crashes at the upper end of the spectrum.
Plane accidents tend to get passengers more nervous and anxious than other forms of travel because of the usually tragic results of a crash. Very rarely do survivors manage to escape the plane alive, especially it was flying at top speed, or over a remote area at the time of the crash.
Moreover, crashes are so rare that when they occur, people are struck by the sheer scale of the disaster. Car crashes are far more frequent, they occur every single day, yet the public has acclimatized their senses to accept car crashes as inevitable, and are no longer surprised when they occur. As well, individuals are far more likely to survive a car crash than a plane crash.
Statistics of Death in Cars vs. Airplanes
(Source: Informed Sources 2000, Risk, Perception, and Cold Numbers )
- Per billion journeys, there are 117 airplane deaths compared to 40 car deaths
- Per billion hours, there are 30 plane deaths compared to 130 car deaths
- Per billion kilometers, there are 0.05 plane deaths compared to 3 car death
Motorcycles are by the far the deadliest vehicles out there:
- Per billion journeys, 1640 deaths
- Per billion hours, 4840 deaths
- Per billion kilometers, 109 deaths
For further reading on airline safety, contact the Aviation Safety Network,
