They say air travel is the safest form of travel - Compared to the others how does it rank?

ranks number one...as more deaths are caused in any other mode of transports then in air transports...

this year there has been 3 air crashes...

about 5 boats in news said were drowed...

and thousands of car and bus and train crashes...

what do you think of air transport now?

(those statistics are from Middle east news papers)

You only ever hear about plane crashes because they are so rare - can you imagine if every road death was front page news?.

You are much more likely to get hit by a car or knocked off your bike than you are to die in a place crash, more likely to drown too.

It is always difficult to answer this question because there is no common base for reporting accident statistics for air, land, and sea transportation.

Airline accident rates are reported based on 100,000 departures (the preliminary rate for US scheduled airlines in 2007 is 0.224 accidents per 100,000 departures, or one accident every 446,429 departures). That metric is difficult, if not impossible to determine for land transportation, though I am sure it can be calculated for sea transportation.

While it would be possible to calculate airline accident rate per hour, this would also be difficult or impossible to work out for land transportation. It would be impossible to calculate, with any degree of accuracy, an airline accident rate per mile.

You could calculate how many accidents occur as a percentage of fleet size, but it would be difficult to get an accurate count of how many cars/trucks/buses are actively being used around the world (or whatever part of the world you are looking at).

If you simply look at the number of aircraft that are involved in accidents compared with the number of vehicles on the ground that are involved in accidents, then yes, flying appears to be safer. However, that is not entirely accurate because there are far less aircraft flying than there are vehicles on the roads.

There are several things you need to take into consideration when considering the safety of air travel:
1) Air travel is (in most areas of the world) the most heavily regulated form of transportation. Safety considerations have top priority in all operations.
2) Aircraft have come a LONG way in regards to mechanical reliability. Unforeseen problems do still occur though, which is why pilots are so highly trained and (usually) paid so well.
3) If something does happen to an aircraft in flight, they WILL have to come back down to the ground, and when they do they will land with a significant amount of speed (airliners in particular). While aircraft are designed to protect the occupants in the event of a crash, there is still the likelihood of major injury or death.
4) Most airliners are capable of carrying many more passengers than any land-based transportation. Sea-going ships can carry even more, but I have no clue what the accident rate is for those.

Having said all of that, do I feel safe traveling by air? Absolutely. I know that if anything does happen, the pilots are trained, and the aircraft is designed, to maximize my chances of survival. The same cannot always be said about any cars or buses you may be traveling in. I believe the reason that the safety of air travel is questioned so frequently is due to the fact that the media tends to sensationalize almost any kind of abnormal aviation event.

Beats everything else hands down. The only reason accidents get on the front page of newspapers is because they are so rare, and the papers love being hysterical. The next best are the railways.

how many times d you here that a airliner has crashed? maybe 3 or 4 times a year, those are the ones bad enough to make it to the news . out of the thousands of flight departures every day, taking off with millions of people. at the most their are 8-15 airline crashes per year. if you are scared of air travel then you should be scared to get in a car every day because a fatal car accident happens every 15 min

Not everyone has got a plane!

All I can say is look at the figures. How many people drive? How many people take the train? How often do planes crash? Statistically it is the safest way to travel. Quantas is statistically the safest airline. But then again, you could die by getting out of bed! Stay in bed and don't ever go anywhere!!

Air Travel is one of the safest ways to travel. Even the safest form of travel can still becoming safer and cleaner if you fly with the right company.

In response to PAUL G..... More people die in bed than anywhere else!