The Safety of Air Travel

NTSB Photo

In today's Chicago Tribune, business columnist Phil Rosenthal writes about the "silver lining of safety" that consumers should see in the crash of Asiania Airlines Flight 214, a Boeing 777 aircraft, in San Francisco. As Rosenthal reports, this was the first deadly commercial aviation flight in the U.S. in more than 4 years, "a lull more likely to be accepted in passing rather than celebrated," he says.

According to Rosenthal, The New York Times recently reported that "the risk of death among U.S. air travelers since 2008 was roughly one in 45 million flights." Those are pretty remarkable odds when you think about it. Rosenthal also quotes Richard Aboulafia, an aerospace analyst with the Teal Group, who notes, "Technologically, we've engineered 99.999% of the danger out of the system." That's prevention through design on display in a big way.

How's this for more context on the relative safety of air travel? "Every single day just in the U.S., the equivalent of a (two-class, 85-passenger Boeing 737-100) in terms of people, is killed on the nation's roads, on average," Aboulafia said.

Rosenthal concludes, "So much regarding the Triple Seven, like all U.S. air travel, is taken for granted. That's the goal, but at the same time we shouldn't forget how much safer flying has become." Read his full column here.