• Transition Aircraft: The Turboprops
• The First Generation of Jet Airliners
• Coast to Coast by Jet
• Air Travel in a Changing America
• Social Change in the Airline Industry
• The Era of Wide-Body Airliners
• Boeing 747 - 151
• Deregulation: A Watershed Event
• New and Expanding Airlines
• Air Express
• From Stewardess to Flight Attendant
• Survival of the Fittest
  • The Death of Eastern Airlines
• Aviation Technology
  • NASA and The Jet Age
  • Computer Technology
  • The Computer Revolution in the Cockpit
• Air Traffic Control Today
• Air Travel and Safety
• Airline Security
• The Flying Experience Today

Air Travel and Safety

Airline travel is the safest form of transportation. More people die in auto accidents in three months in the United States than have lost their lives in the entire history of commercial flight. It is far safer to fly than it is to get to the airport.

Because air travel is so safe and accidents so rare, when an incident occurs it is often highly publicized, which heightens the unwarranted perception of danger.

Smithsonian Institution, National Air and Space Museum	Safety Equipment Since the advent of high-altitude pressurized airliners in the early 1940s, airliners have featured oxygen masks as well as evacuation slides and rafts to aid passengers and crew in emergencies.
Continental Airlines	A Continental flight attendant demonstrates the proper use of an emergency oxygen mask.