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When Vivian, my daughter-in-law, introduced me to her father, his first remark was, “Oh, you’re an airline pilot. I have never flown in all my life because I am so afraid to fly. Honestly, I feel safer traveling in a motor car than an airplane.”
Vivian’s father is 65 years old. He has never traveled by air, and was rather embarrassed to have confessed his fear of flying to me. Well, he is not alone in this world. Michael Jackson, Mohammed Ali, Cher and many others are fearful flyers too.
Twenty years ago, Boeing Aircraft Corporation conducted a survey and found that more than 25 millions people in the United States were fearful of flying in a passenger plane. In the March 2001 Gallup Poll, it was again revealed that 20 % of Americans are still fearful to fly. Out of these, at least one in six people were uncomfortable when they board an airplane. This fear has turned into paranoia for some after the September 11th tragedy.
One of the main causes of the fearful flyers is the safety aspect of the airplane. I will endeavor to discuss this important topic of air travel first to hopefully soothe the nerves of some air travelers. Knowledge is a very important part of overcoming the fear of flying..
I have been flying for the last 30 years or so and have logged a total of about 20,000 hours in the airplane. That is equivalent to flying to the moon and back 18 times. Worried so far? No, I am not. I am not fearful to fly and if I need to be worried, it would be my journey to the airport either by car or a coach!
Air disasters, such as air crashes usually caused people to think that airplanes are unsafe. Furthermore, air accidents are hot news to the media and extensive coverage is always given to them. In the face of such publicity, it is sometime quite difficult to convince the person in the street that flying is safe.
Here, I will attempt to reassure the day-to-day passengers that air travel is as safe as can be. How? By giving you a doze of statistics first, then delve into examples of air safety.
It has been said that the safety record for commercial flying in the United States is one of the safest in the world. Arnold Barnett, a statistician from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology noted that the death risk was 1 in 2 million in the decade from 1967 to 1976. It is estimated that the risk today is in the region of 1 in 10 millions.
Compare these to the more down-to-earth transportation - the motorways or the railways. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) stated that your chances of being killed in a motorcar accident is 1 in 5,000. If you decide to travel by train, your odd of dying due to a train crash is reduced to around 1 in 400,000. In an airplane, it varies from 1 in 400,000 to 1 in 10,000,000 depending on the reputation of the airlines you are going to travel on.
Here is another better way of explaining the statistics. In 1996, the NTSB came up the statement that scheduled commercial airlines had a fatal accident rate of 0.026 per 100,000 flying hours. Translated very simply, this would show that a passenger would have to fly 24 hours a day for over 400 years before he would be involved in a fatal accident!
The 10-year survey compiled by Dr Arnold Barnett for the period 1987 to 1996 indicated that the mortality risk per flight for International jet in the advanced world was one in five million. That is equivalent to taking a random flight everyday for about 13,000 years (5,000,000 divided by 365 days) to be involved in a fatal crash! In the lesser ranking airlines, the mortality risk per passenger flight is in the region of around 1 in 400,000. Even with this lower rate, you still have to take a flight every day for about 1000 years before you are likely to be involved in a fatal accident! Sounds incredulous?
To convince you further, let’s compare flying to traveling by automobiles. According to National Transportation Safety Board, using 1994 as a year to make these 2 comparisons) scheduled commercial airlines had a death rate of 0.04 per hundred million passenger miles. The same rate for automobile was 0.86. So traveling by automobile is 21 times more dangerous than air travel!
In terms of the number of deaths, the comparative figures are more disturbing. In 2000, commercial airplanes fatalities were only 878. By contrast, five times as many people died in boating accidents and accidents involving bicycles. Nearly 10 times as many people died in swimming accidents and about 41,900 were killed in automobiles accidents!
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