I think some people are forgetting a few things...
1. From May 25, 1979 until December 20th, 1995 American Airlines operated over 15,000,000 flights without a single passenger fataility. On December 19th, 1995 AAL had operated more fataility free flights than any airline in the history of the industry. At the time, SWA had completely just over half that number of flights in their entire existance. (Does anyone know if they've passed the 15,000,000 mark by now?)
2. From September 20, 1989 until September 8, 1994, a period of just under five years, US Air had five crashes (LGA, LAX, LGA, CLT, PIT) with passenger fatailities--one per year--yet have managed to fly the past decade without a single passenger fatality.
3. The day that Valujet crashed into the everglades, valuejet's accident rate would have proceduced a major crash every third or fourth day if applied to AAL, DAL or UAL's number of daily flights.
Random events due to space themselves out nice and even. They occur in bunches followed by long periods where they appear rarely or not at all.