If you’re flying on an Airbus A330 American Airlines flight from San Francisco International Airport to London Heathrow, there’s a one in 2,783,874 chance that your flight will go down, according to the newly released app, “Am I Going Down?”. That is to say, if you take a flight every day for the next 7,627 years, you are unlikely to experience even one incident!
App developer Nic Johns states that he made this app to help reassure fearful fliers, like his wife, that flying is statistically extremely safe. The app has assessed more than 10 million different routes, using data from sources such as the Bureau of Aircraft Accidents Archives, the United States National Transportation Safety Board and the Civil Aviation Organisation.
‘For my analysis, I only include crashes where there was at least one passenger fatality – which is the relevant stat for those with a fear of flying,’ Johns explains to CNN. ‘I then incorporate the volume of flights, weighted to the most recent, to provide the final “one in a million” statistics.’
The ‘Am I Going Down?’ app is now available on iTunes at $0.99 and is currently only available for iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch. An Android version may be released in the future.
