Here’s an interesting fact: Did you know that, though 45 percent of airline crashes occur on landing, those crashes only account for two percent of the fatalities? Most fatalities (37 percent) occur during climbing or cruising (37 percent), even though those crashes only account for 14 percent of all crashes. So, the final scene in Cameron Crowe’s <i>Say Anything</i> has some accuracy: Once you make it to a cruising altitude, your chances of dying in an airplane drop considerably.

Not that the odds of dying in an airplane crash are particularly high in the first place. Over the course of your life, you have a 1 in 20,000 chance of dying in an air-related accident. Compare that to the 1 in 5 chance of dying of hear disease or the 1 in 7 chance of dying of cancer.

All the same, major airplane catastrophes do grab big headlines. And for the curious among you, the deadliest aviation accident in history was the Tenerife airport disaster back in 1977, when 548 people died when two Boeing 747′s collided over the Spanish island of Tenerife. What’s more remarkable, at least to me, about that crash was that 61 people survived the crash.

The second largest airline accident was Japan Airlines Flight 123, which crashed into a mountain in 1985. 520 people died, and yet again, four people managed to survive. That was the deadliest <i>single</i> aircraft crash in history.

The deadliest United-States based airline accident? American Airlines Flight 191, which crashed in Chicago in 1979, killing 258 people. There were no survivors.

Of course, if you’re scared of flying, keep this stat in mind: There are around 85,000 flights a day around the world, and in the history of aviation, there have only been 260 airline crashes that have resulted in more than 10 deaths. So, you’re in good hands.