CONTROL TOWER — TRUST

Sources & methodology.

Every number on this site is sourced, dated, and recalculated when new data lands. If we joke about elephants, the elephant math is still real.

Primary sources

IATA Safety Report — annual accident rates per million flights (2025 edition)

ICAO Safety Report — global accident statistics and definitions

NTSB & Aviation Safety Network — per-aircraft and per-airline records

MIT (Arnold Barnett) — death-risk-per-boarding research, 1968–2024

How we define things

"Fatal accident" — ICAO definition: any accident with at least one passenger or crew fatality, scheduled commercial jet operations.

"Years without fatal accident" — jet-era, mainline operations only; regional subsidiaries counted separately.

Odds comparisons — lifetime odds from US NSC actuarial tables vs. per-flight aviation risk, normalized per year. Full math on each comparison's page.

Who checks this

Nobody but us, so far — and we would rather say that than pretend otherwise. There is no expert review board behind this site yet. What there is: every number traces to a named public source above, and every claim we could not source, we cut.

Found something wrong, or fly for a living and want to review this? hello@statisticallyfine.com

On bad days

If a serious accident happens, this site switches to a factual, humor-free mode: what's known, what's not, and how rare the event remains. We never pretend aviation is perfect — we show you the honest denominator.

BREATHE IN AND OUT

You're riding the safest form of travel humans have ever built.

That rumble or whine is normal — flaps, landing gear, engines changing power. Your pilots hear it every flight.

Turbulence is uncomfortable, never dangerous. It has never brought down a modern jet.

Right now, ~9,412 planes are in the air with you. Statistically, every single one lands safely.