Why Flying Remains One of the Safest Modes of Travel

by Will Hall

How irrational is the fear of being killed in a plane crash?

Very. This question can be answered with no doubt and in one word. The aviation industry is one of the safest in the world, and it is a well known fact that air travel is the safest form of transport, and the competition isn’t even close.

In 2013, just 224 people were killed in aviation related incidents, far fewer than the average 1.3 million people who are killed by car crashes each year. In fact, twice as many people were killed by hippos in 2013 than were by plane crashes. In the USA, 450 children are killed each year by their parents, 

The odds of dying in a plane crash are just so slim that there’s just no point worrying about it at all. You don’t wake up in the morning and pray you aren’t killed by a hippo or your parents do you? Plane crashes are given an extreme amount of coverage in the media, as the recent Egypt Air crash has been the BBC headline all week, which creates paranoia among the 6.5% of our population who say they have a fear of flying.

In the last couple of years a staggering 65 people have died in ‘selfie-related incidents’, a mighty 10% of the total number of aviation fatalities in 2013. So, watch out kids, fear the real killer.