Flying in a passenger jet is 6 times safer than driving in a car

If you are flying in the U.S.

However, if you are flying in a small plane that is different and then the statistics become a lot more like driving in a car on the ground. This is because, generally speaking even though there are less planes in the sky than there are driving on the ground, if you have a mechanical problem in a plane it is much more serious (most of the time) than having a mechanical failure on the ground.

For example, unless it is your brakes or steering having a problem you can survive most car breakdowns. But, in a plane all kinds of mechanical things can go wrong.

For example, most pilots fly near the ocean and are used to flying their private planes mostly between 2500 feet and 7500 feet. However, then if they fly to a place like Colorado where most elevations are above 5000 feet except at Pueblo, Colorado or lower elevation places like that (Pueblo is I think around 4900 feet high). So, for example, if you don't change your fuel mixture and you don't realize you haven't changed the fuel to air mixture your engine will eventually cut out. And often you cannot restart your engine if your fuel mixture isn't right to start with at all. So, you are either going to land somewhere or you are going to crash somewhere depending upon what skills you have as a pilot. If you panic you are likely going to die along with all your passengers on board your private plane. And if it is a twin engine this becomes even more complicated. And if your wheels go down and up even more complicated because landing without wheels might be your best alternative because of the drag on the plane when the wheels are down. Also, if the engine isn't running you might not have power to lower the wheels anyhow.

Then, are you landing or crashing?This is really important because you might want wheels for landing but not having wheels while crashing might be to your advantage in physical survival of you and your passengers. For example, if you are crash landing you might want to take the wings off on trees to lessen your chances of burning to death in the crash. Taking the wings off by flying through trees might take the fuel away from you and your passengers and save your lives. However, you only have split seconds to make all these decisions when something goes wrong. And the wrong set of decisions are likely going to kill everyone on board. And you never know when you are going to be put in this position either. It's just like driving a car when something bad happened were you ready for it?

I remember being 20 years old and driving on the San Diego Freeway in the Los Angeles general area. I saw a crash up ahead and realized my car might make it into the emergency lane to avoid being a part of this big accident. So, since I was driving a new 1968 Camaro that cornered well I screeched the tires left then right at high speed (around 70 mph) like the moving traffic in the fast lane and avoided the accident completely as I came to a full stop in the left emergency lane. However, all cars both in front of where I had been and behind where I had been were totaled. I alone had emerged unscathed because I had a performance car and fast reflexes and knew how to maximize both.

It is a little like this in a small or large plane. The better skilled you are in an emergency and the cooler you are able to be instantaneously, the more likely you are to survive anything.