What's more dangerous? - airplane versus automobile accidents - Brief Article - Statistical Data Included

Approach, April, 2002 by Mike Borowsky, John Gaynor

Four hundred and fifty people died in 12 fatal U.S air-transport accidents from 1996 to 2000. Meanwhile, 209,117 people, including 30,189 pedestrians and bicyclists, died in 186,474 fatal traffic crashes. In 2000 alone, 37,409 crashes killed 41,821 people.

That's 114 people, per day, who died on the highways--the equivalent of a large commercial aircraft crash every other day!

In the same five-year period, there were 50,141,570 aircraft departures. These flights totaled 31,535,345,000 miles and 77,682,791 flight hours. So your chances of being on a flight that crashes and kills people would be 1 in 4,178,464. You could fly one flight per day for more than 11,000 years without incident.

Let's say you're taking a vacation 600 miles from home. If you fly, your chance of being in a fatal crash is 1 in 2,089,232 (Don't forget, it's a round trip, so there are two flights, if they both are direct). Your chances of being in a fatal aircraft accident during your trip is extremely small--about the same as winning the Virginia lottery in seven plays.

Because you're afraid to fly, you decide to drive that 1,200-mile round trip. Based on the 25,492 driver fatalities and the 2.7 trillion vehicle miles traveled per year, the likelihood you will die on the trip is 1 in 88,263. If you drive, your chances of dying in a crash during your trip are about 24 times higher than if you go by airplane. In 20 years of driving in a motor vehicle, at 20,000 miles a year, you have a 1-in-265 chance of dying.

If, on second thought, you decide to fly on your trip, should you fly via commercial airline or in a Navy or Marine air transport? From 1996 to 2000, U.S. air transport accidents killed 447 aircraft occupants. The fatal-accident rates were 0.024 fatal accidents per 100,000 departures and 0.015 per 100,000 flight hours. However, there were no fatal C-9 or C-130 mishaps during fiscal years 1981 to 2002 (through 14 November), in which there were 781,442 aircraft departures that flew 2,003,030 hours.

The C-2, C-12, and C-20 aircraft are more comparable to civilian-commuter air carriers, which have higher fatality rates than the large air carriers we've been discussing. From 1996 to 2000, commuter air carriers had 12 fatal accidents in 7,432,247 aircraft departures that flew 5,095,285 flight hours. The fatal accident rates are 0.161 and 0.236 per 100,000 aircraft departures and per 100,000 flight hours, respectively. The C-2, C-12, and C-20 flights from 1981 to 2002 (through 14 November) had two fatal mishaps in 815,956 aircraft departures that flew 1,457,307 flight hours. This results in fatal-accident rates of 0.25 per 100,000 aircraft departures and 0.14 per 100,000 flight hours.

Bottom line: First choice, fly commercial transport or in a C-9 or C-130. Second choice, flip a coin to decide between civilian-commuter-air carrier and C-2, C-12, or C-20.

Let's stretch the bounds of reason and say you want to take your trip in a fighter or attack aircraft, a helicopter or a trainer. Here are the stats for FY97-01. Fatal-mishap rates are the numbers of flight and flight-related mishaps that involved at least one fatality per 100,000 aircraft departures and per 100,000 flight hours.

Fighter-attack: 26 fatal mishaps; 1,372,402 flights; 2,007,354 flight hours; 1.89, 1.30.

Helicopter: 16 fatal mishaps; 943,412 flights; 1,995,670 flight hours; 1.70, 0.80.

Trainer: 12 fatal mishaps; 928,558 flights; 1,545,756 flight hours; 1.29, 0.78.

Bottom line: Stick to air transport.

Dr. Borowsky is the department head, and Dr. Gaynor is a mathematical statistician, in the Statistics and Mathematics Department, Naval Safety Center.