Ever since the Wright brothers invented the airplane in 1903, flying has become safer. According to a Huffington Post article, the past 10 years have been the best in the country's aviation history, with 153 deaths. To put this statistic into perspective, the Associated Press determined that it equates to two deaths per 100 million passengers flying commercially. Compare that small fraction to the more than 30,000 motor vehicle deaths that occur annually.
Today, air traffic control relies much more on advanced GPS technology. This allows air traffic controllers to give their pilots in the air more accurate and up-to-date information up to the minute, while allowing them to reduce much more efficient flight plans in the air. In the 1990s, when air travel was becoming more and more common, even more than ever, the idea that air travel is safe spread more and more. Air travel resulted in 0.07 deaths per billion miles traveled, compared to 212.57 for motorcycles and 7.28 for cars.
