Friday, 25 July 2014

If you're avoiding air travel after MH17 and more, let statistics be your guide | James Ball

Suddenly fear flying? There are so many better things to be scared of. Photograph: Stephen Strathdee/Getty Images

Is it really so irrational to avoid air travel in the wake of the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 over eastern Ukraine, and the TransAsia crash off the coast of Taiwan, and now the Algerian airliner in Northern Africa?

Yes. Completely, totally and entirely irrational. You are probably not going to die in an airplane crash.

It's a widespread fear after planes go down, even though the truth is that air travel is almost always boringly safe and uneventful (whether we concentrate on major US airlines or other carriers around the world). The latest global airline safety report shows there were 90 commercial airplane accidents in 2013. Only nine involved fatalities

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