You're Not Going To Die In A Plane Crash

That has nothing to do with who is president.

- Katherine Mangu-Ward

It’s extremely difficult—indeed, nearly impossible—to get yourself killed while traveling on an American airline these days.

The last fatal accident on a U.S. commercial passenger airline was in 2009, when a Continental Connection flight crashed into a house near Buffalo, killing 49 people aboard and one on the ground. Smaller turbo prop and cargo planes have been occasionally involved in fatal crashes since then. But if you are a typical traveler, you’re unlikely to wind up on one of those flights.

And 2017 was a particularly good year. Globally, it was “the safest year for aviation ever,” as Adrian Young of the Dutch consulting firm To70 told Reuters in January. On top of the fact that there were no passenger jet fatalities, other types of flying got safer as well. There were just 111 accidents worldwide, the company reports, only two of which included deaths—one flight in Angola on a Brazilian-made aircraft and the other on a Czech-made plane in Russia.

Another report which came out at the same time, from the Aviation Safety Network, found 10 fatal airline accidents worldwide resulting in 79 deaths, including cargo planes.

Those figures don’t stop a significant percentage of flyers from freaking out whenever their huge, safe jet hits a patch of turbulence, though. For the sweatypalmed flyer experiencing a moment of personal panic, knowing the numbers isn’t always enough.

But what if there were a powerful man—maybe even the most powerful man in the world—doing whatever he could to keep you safe? Would that make you feel better?