BEIJING, CHINA – 05/26/2016: An Air China plane flies over the parking lot during landing. Air China, China’s leading airline, carried 8.02 million passengers in April, representing an 8.5% jump year-on-year, and the January-April total rose 6.8% to 31.08 million. (Photo by Zhang Ping/LightRocket via Getty Images) Changping Light Rocket via Getty Images
It’s a question you can’t help but wonder as that plane starts rolling down the runway, the engines roar to life, and you start climbing thousands of feet into the air toward an exciting destination: Are planes safer than cars?
It’s a fear you probably don’t feel when driving home Your local grocery store or in an Uber on your way home from a friend’s house. But the truth is that according to US government statistics, flying on an airplane is on average safer than driving a car.
Data from National Highway Traffic Safety Administration It shows that in 2015, there were 32,166 fatal vehicle accidents resulting in just over 35,000 deaths. That works out to 1.13 deaths per 100 million vehicle miles driven, and about 11 deaths per 100,000 US residents.
Compare these numbers with US aviation accidents recorded by National Transportation Safety Board: In 2015, preliminary statistics revealed 27 accidents, none of which were fatal. Of the accidents that occurred, only 0.155 occurred per 100,000 flight hours. The rate of aviation accidents per million miles flown was 0.0035.
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In other words: Americans have a 1 in 114 chance of dying in a car accident, according to a report National Safety Council. The odds of death in air and space transport accidents, which include private flights and air taxis, is 1 in 9,821. These are approximately three times better chances than meeting your fate by choking on food.
Purely statistically speaking, driving a car is more dangerous than flying on an airplane. But it’s easy to see why the general public often assumes otherwise. Car accidents may occur every day throughout the United States, but many are minor with little or no injuries. Airplane crashes, on the other hand, can be catastrophic and fatal events.
However, airlines Thoroughly inspect their equipment and employ professionally trained pilots To ensure a smooth ride every time.
