The odds of dying in a crash of a commercial airliner are most definitely even lower than the above data suggest.

The statistic calculates the chances of death in "air and space transport accidents" based on the average number of people who die in such accidents every year. The problem is that this statistic includes deaths in private planes and other small aircraft.

In fact, in the year 2005 (the year reflected in the stats in the above chart), 568 of the 590 aviation deaths occurred in planes with less than 10 seats. So if you're someone who only flies on commercial airlines with more than 10 seats, your chances of dying are considerably smaller.

Further examination shows that over the 10 year period of 1998-2007, the average number of deaths per year in large commercial airline accidents is 74.5. And that average includes 2001, a year that heavily skews the statistics because of the three major air "accidents" that all occurred on the same day. If you remove the month of September, 2001, the average is less than 24 deaths per year.

Considering the total scheduled domestic and international passengers on U.S. airlines and on flights to and from the United States on foreign airlines was 809 million in 2008 (according to the US Department of Transportation), the chances of dying on an airplane are very very low. (My simple arithmetic says about 1 in 33.7 million, or 1 in 10.8 million if you include 9/11 deaths in the statistics.)

So I'd say your chances of dying in a plane crash are right about on par with your chances of winning the lottery. Of course, it's a lot cheaper to play the lottery, so it's a lot easier to improve those odds.

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