RWA:
I've quite often 'advised' her to choose Boeings, rather than A330s/A340s, whenever possible. Without going into too much technical detail.
She just emailed me this arvo to say, "Thanks, Dad. Reading about the Air France thing, guess I'll try to follow your advice from now on........."
Anyone on here think that a basically-thick, but luckily 'cunning,' guy like me was over-reacting? Or that my (highly-intelligent, 'to a fault', honours-law-degree and Masters' ticket) daughter, who knows nothing at ALL about aviation, is over-reacting too?
I'm just PPL/SLF, with a similar professional background to your daughter, but I've no doubt you're both over-reacting, and that there are many, many aviation professionals on this site who could tell you the same.
But really you should get it from the horse's mouth: Boeing themselves. Have a look at their
2008 Statistical Summary of Commercial Jet Airplane Accidents. Pay particular attention to page 19, the summary of hull loss rates by aircraft type. I see nothing on that page to favour Boeing over Airbus. A casual inspection very much suggests the opposite in fact, although the period of time covered by the data undoubtedly muddies the waters.
But whether or not one type could be demonstrated to be superior to another is largely irrelevant. The rate of fatal hull losses per million departures is so fantastically low (~1) that any underlying systematic difference between manufacturers is likely to be a small change in an already tiny risk. Anyone seriously worried by such a marginal change should give up air travel for good. Not because air travel itself is dangerous, but because anyone so sensitive to such tiny risks must surely find getting in the car for the trip to the airport to be an activity so foolishly risky that they would never countenance it...
