Is heart disease kills you more likely than dying in a plane crash?

Yes. The lifetime odds are 1 in 5, which is 2,740,000× more likely than the 1-in-13.7-million risk of dying on a commercial flight.

Is cancer kills you more likely than dying in a plane crash?

Yes. The lifetime odds are 1 in 7, which is 1,960,000× more likely than the 1-in-13.7-million risk of dying on a commercial flight.

Is a stroke kills you more likely than dying in a plane crash?

Yes. The lifetime odds are 1 in 24, which is 571,000× more likely than the 1-in-13.7-million risk of dying on a commercial flight.

Is a hospital infection kills you more likely than dying in a plane crash?

Yes. The lifetime odds are 1 in 38, which is 361,000× more likely than the 1-in-13.7-million risk of dying on a commercial flight.

Is the flu kills you more likely than dying in a plane crash?

Yes. The lifetime odds are 1 in 63, which is 217,000× more likely than the 1-in-13.7-million risk of dying on a commercial flight.

Is you die in a car crash more likely than dying in a plane crash?

Yes. The lifetime odds are 1 in 84, which is 163,000× more likely than the 1-in-13.7-million risk of dying on a commercial flight.

GATE 07 — THE ODDS DESK

Everything that is more likely to kill you than your flight.

Your risk of dying on a commercial flight is 1 in 13,700,000 boardings. Below are two tables, from two sources, kept apart on purpose. Every row in both beats the plane.

THE NATIONAL SAFETY COUNCIL, 2021

“Passenger on an airplane — too few deaths in 2021 to calculate odds.”

That is the entire row. The NSC computes lifetime odds for dog attacks, bee stings and hot surfaces. For airline passengers it printed a sentence instead of a number, because the denominator ran out of dead people. Lightning and railway passengers got the same treatment. We did not write that cell, and we could not have written a better one.

READ THIS FIRST

These are lifetime odds. The flight number is per boarding. They are different denominators and we are not going to quietly paper over that: this page answers “across a whole life, how does that compare to one flight?” — not “which one kills more people per hour?”

The same source table lists an air or space accident kills you at 1 in 5,051 — 2,710× more likely than dying on your flight, which sounds like it demolishes our whole argument. It doesn’t, and here is why: that row pools private planes, helicopters, crop dusters, military jets and spaceflight. General aviation ran a fatal accident rate of 1.049 per 100,000 flight hours in 2020. Scheduled airlines ran 0.006. That is roughly 175 times the risk, and it is where nearly all of that row comes from. You are not booked on a crop duster. We left the row in because deleting it is precisely the sort of thing this site exists to not do. NTSB →

Table one — the comparison set

International Shark Attack File’s table: accidental deaths from the NSC, disease deaths from the CDC, sharks from ISAF. 2021 US population, 76.6-year life expectancy. 16 rows.

01 Heart disease kills you Illness § ISAF ↗ 1 in 5 2,740,000× more likely
02 Cancer kills you Illness § ISAF ↗ 1 in 7 1,960,000× more likely
03 A stroke kills you Illness § ISAF ↗ 1 in 24 571,000× more likely
04 A hospital infection kills you Illness § ISAF ↗ 1 in 38 361,000× more likely
05 The flu kills you Illness § ISAF ↗ 1 in 63 217,000× more likely
06 You die in a car crash An ordinary day § ISAF ↗ 1 in 84 163,000× more likely
07 You are poisoned by accident An ordinary day § ISAF ↗ 1 in 193 71,000× more likely
08 You die from a fall An ordinary day § ISAF ↗ 1 in 218 62,800× more likely
09 You drown An ordinary day § ISAF ↗ 1 in 1,134 12,100× more likely
10 A bike ride kills you An ordinary day § ISAF ↗ 1 in 4,919 2,790× more likely
11 You freeze to death Freak accident § ISAF ↗ 1 in 6,045 2,270× more likely
12 The sun kills you Freak accident § ISAF ↗ 1 in 13,729 998× more likely
13 You're killed by lightning Freak accident § ISAF ↗ 1 in 79,746 172× more likely
14 A train crash kills you Freak accident § ISAF ↗ 1 in 156,169 88× more likely
15 Fireworks kill you Freak accident § ISAF ↗ 1 in 340,733 40× more likely
16 A shark kills you Freak accident § ISAF ↗ 1 in 4,332,817 3× more likely

Table two — the NSC’s own numbers

Lifetime odds of death for selected causes, United States, 2021. A different compilation, so the figures differ: NSC puts a motor-vehicle crash at 1 in 93, the table above at 1 in 84. We do not rank across the two, and neither should you. 27 rows. Checked 2026-07-09.

01 Heart disease§NSC ↗ 1 in 6 2,280,000× more likely
02 Cancer§NSC ↗ 1 in 7 1,960,000× more likely
03 COVID-19§NSC ↗ 1 in 10 1,370,000× more likely
04 All preventable causes of death§NSC ↗ 1 in 19 721,000× more likely
05 Chronic lower respiratory disease§NSC ↗ 1 in 31 442,000× more likely
06 Opioid overdose (accidental)§NSC ↗ 1 in 58 236,000× more likely
07 Guns (all intents)§NSC ↗ 1 in 89 154,000× more likely
08 Motor-vehicle crash§NSC ↗ 1 in 93 147,000× more likely
09 Fall§NSC ↗ 1 in 98 140,000× more likely
10 Gun assault§NSC ↗ 1 in 208 65,900× more likely
11 Pedestrian incident§NSC ↗ 1 in 485 28,200× more likely
12 Motorcyclist§NSC ↗ 1 in 747 18,300× more likely
13 Drowning§NSC ↗ 1 in 1,006 13,600× more likely
14 Fire or smoke§NSC ↗ 1 in 1,287 10,600× more likely
15 Choking on food§NSC ↗ 1 in 2,659 5,150× more likely
16 Bicyclist§NSC ↗ 1 in 3,546 3,860× more likely
17 Sunstroke§NSC ↗ 1 in 4,655 2,940× more likely
18 Accidental gun discharge§NSC ↗ 1 in 7,944 1,720× more likely
19 Electrocution, radiation, extreme temperatures, and pressure§NSC ↗ 1 in 13,176 1,040× more likely
20 Cataclysmic storm§NSC ↗ 1 in 20,098 682× more likely
21 Sharp objects§NSC ↗ 1 in 25,960 528× more likely
22 Hot surfaces and substances§NSC ↗ 1 in 45,908 298× more likely
23 Dog attack§NSC ↗ 1 in 53,843 254× more likely
24 Hornet, wasp, and bee stings§NSC ↗ 1 in 54,516 251× more likely
— Lightning§NSC ↗ Too few deaths in 2021 to calculate odds
— Railway passenger§NSC ↗ Too few deaths in 2021 to calculate odds
— Passenger on an airplane§NSC ↗ Too few deaths in 2021 to calculate odds

Source: National Safety Council estimates based on National Center for Health Statistics mortality data for 2021; population and life expectancy from the U.S. Census Bureau. injuryfacts.nsc.org is serving an offline page as of 2026-07-09, so this links to the Internet Archive capture these rows were read from. NSC (archived) →

The math, in full

Take the lightning row. Lifetime odds of being killed by lightning: 1 in 79,746. Risk of dying on a commercial flight: 1 in 13,700,000. Divide one by the other — 13,700,000 ÷ 79,746 — and you get 171.8, which we round to 172× more likely. Every row above is that same division. Nothing is hand-typed; if a source number changes, the multiplier changes with it.

Past a thousand we round to three significant figures, because “163,095× more likely” implies a precision that a lifetime actuarial table simply does not have. The bars are log-scaled, not linear, or everything past 1-in-5,000 would render as the same nub.

Flight risk: Barnett, Journal of Air Transport Management, Aug 2024 — 1 death per 13.7M boardings worldwide, 2018–2022. MIT →
Table one: ISAF →

Suicide appears in both source tables. We left the standalone row out on purpose — this page is meant to be funny, and that is not. The NSC’s “guns (all intents)” row does include it, and we have not quietly re-derived a cleaner number to hide that. If you are struggling, please reach out to someone. Corrections and additions: [email protected]

CITE THIS PAGE

Statistically Fine — Everything more likely to kill you than your flight
https://statisticallyfine.com/odds/
Data sources are linked per figure above — no separate citation needed per number.