Air travel has never been safer. According to the International Air Transport Association (IATA), an average passenger travelling on Western-built jetliners would have to take no fewer than 5.3m flights before being involved in an accident. To put that in perspective, even the most frequent of fliers is unlikely ever to rack up more than 20,000 flights over the course of a lifetime. The accident rate for the airline industry as a whole is now so low that someone taking a flight a day could theoretically expect 14,000 years of trouble-free flying.
Air safety: Difference Engine: Up, up and away | The Economist