The Odds of Surviving a Plane Crash

The Book of Odds takes a look at a question that flashes through the minds of many people the moment they board an airplane: what are your odds of surviving a plane crash? They found that “[t]he general survival rate for a casualty-inducing airline incident is about 38% or, in our parlance: your odds of survival are about 1 in 2.63.” That might seem pretty good, but Book of Odds points out that the distribution is a bit skewed: “[I]f we break up the data into buckets of survival rates we find that our heaviest bucket (by a long shot) is the one we’ve aptly titled ‘Certain Death,’ or, incidents in which there were no survivors.” Interestingly, the odds of certain death are about 1 in 2.63, the same as the odds of surviving. Over at Salon, Patrick Smith of “Ask the Pilot” has written on the same topic. [%comments]