I am currently undertaking research into the occupational health and safety of pilots and flight attendants, and so the data reported in the Sun is of some interest to me.
There are two things that seem wrong with the data. First, the salary seems rather low. And second, one would expect that for each flight deck officer killed there may be one or two flight attendants killed as well in the same crash, thus making their job as effectively risky as that of the flight deck officer.
I suspect that the authors of the original study have actually taken the deaths of "on-board air crew" and have assumed that they are all flight deck crew as opposed to pilots and cabin crew. The lowish salary may come from adding cabin crew and flight deck crew salaries together and averaging them.
I have recently been looking for definitive data on injury rates (not death rates) for on-board airline employees and have only just found one source of data from Canada.
A report at this site
http://info.load-otea.hrdc-drhc.gc.c...e/oicc9397.pdf
states that "The Air Transport industry as a whole showed a disabling injury rate frequency rate....which is amongst the highest rates by industrial sector." This comment relates to combined on-board and off-board injuries, and in fact the rate for on-board is lower than for off-board injuries. But the on-board rate is still high compared to other sectors.
I have summarised the statistics as follows: if you are an on-board airline employee (pilot or flight attendant) you will have an injury rate that is two and a half times greater than that of the average worker.