A woman from Massachusetts recently won what is considered to be the second-largest jackpot in the history of lotteries in the United States. She chose to take the lump sum of approximately $336 million after taxes instead of the full $758.7 million prize spread out over 30 years.
Your Odds of Dying in an Airplane Crash — Revisited
Your odds of winning the grand prize of the Powerball lottery drawing are one in 292,201,338, according to this article I wrote on Tuesday, January 12, 2016; so I thought I would revisit what the odds are in dying in an airplane crash.
This time, I decided to use these statistics which are offered by the National Safety Council, whose mission is to “eliminates preventable deaths at work, in homes and communities, and on the road through leadership, research, education and advocacy.”
Assuming that the odds of dying from all possible causes are 1 in 1, then the lifetime odds of death for the causes listed in the chart below — from most likely to least — are:
| CAUSE OF DEATH | ODDS OF DYING |
|---|---|
| Heart Disease and Cancer | 1 in 7 |
| Chronic Lower Respiratory Disease | 1 in 28 |
| Intentional Self-Harm | 1 in 95 |
| Unintentional Poisoning by and Exposure to Noxious Substances | 1 in 96 |
| Motor Vehicle Crash | 1 in 114 |
| Fall | 1 in 127 |
| Assault by Firearm | 1 in 370 |
| Car Occupant | 1 in 645 |
| Pedestrian Incident | 1 in 647 |
| Motorcycle Rider Incident | 1 in 985 |
| Unintentional Drowning and Submersion | 1 in 1,188 |
| Exposure to Fire, Flames or Smoke | 1 in 1,498 |
| Choking from Inhalation and Ingestion of Food | 1 in 3,461 |
| Pedacyclist Incident | 1 in 4,486 |
| Firearms Discharge | 1 in 6,905 |
| Air and Space Transport Incidents | 1 in 9,821 |
| Exposure to Electric Current, Radiation, Temperature and Pressure | 1 in 15,212 |
| Exposure to Excessive Natural Heat | 1 in 16,584 |
| Contact with Sharp Objects | 1 in 38,174 |
| Contact with Heat and Hot Substances | 1 in 56,992 |
| Contact with Hornets, Wasps and Bees | 1 in 63,225 |
| Cataclysmic Storm | 1 in 66,335 |
| Being Bitten or Struck by a Dog | 1 in 112,400 |
| Legal Execution | 1 in 119,012 |
| Lightning Strike | 1 in 161,856 |
Source: National Safety Council estimates based on data from National Center for Health Statistics–Mortality Data, as compiled from data provided by the 57 vital statistics jurisdictions through the Vital Statistics Cooperative Program. Deaths are classified on the basis of the World Health Organization’s The International Classification of Diseases.
For additional statistics related to mortality — as well as estimated one-year and lifetime odds — see pages 40 through 43 of the Injury Facts® 2017 Edition, which costs $109.85; but the downloadable version is available free of charge to members.
Summary
That both air and space transportation incidents were bundled together into one statistic was interesting, in my opinion. This leads to the assumption that the odds of dying in an airplane crash are slightly less — although the actual difference may be too insignificant to matter.
Regardless of which numbers you prefer to believe — the ones offered in the aforementioned article or this article; and there are many more variations of them out there on the Internet — one thing is for certain: you are most likely not going to die in an airplane crash, as that chances of that happening are incredibly low.
Your chances of being involved in an automobile accident are significantly higher, however — especially if you are a passenger in a moving vehicle where the driver is texting…
…which means that the odds of you being involved — or killed — in an automobile accident on your way to purchasing the lottery ticket or to the airport are substantially more likely than you winning the jackpot of the Powerball lottery drawing; and certainly far more likely than being killed in an airplane crash.
Ironically, the ex-husband of the winner of the lottery was reportedly killed last year in a hit-and-run incident caused by a pickup truck driven by a motorist who was inebriated…
Photograph ©2013 by Brian Cohen.
