You Almost Certainly Won't Die in a Plane Crash

Everyone is all worked up and sad over the whole plane crash in San Francisco thing. Sure, two people died and that's sad and all, and now everyone is scared to get on a plane not only because 9/11 could happen again, but because the plane could crash as its landing, or on an island with magic smoke monsters.

I 100% guarantee you that your plane will not crash like this,
because your plane is not a cartoon. 

But think about it. There is almost a 100% guarantee that you won't die if you get in a plane. Two people died in that recent crash, but there were a lot of people on that plane. Plus, those are the first deaths on any commercial flight in the US in four and a half years. During those years, at least 3 billion people have flown. 

While this math is by no means exact, that means that of all people who flew in the last 4.5 years, .0000000006666666% died. That means about 99.9999999993% survived. You can't get much better than that. That stupid antibacteria stuff only has three or four nines, this has got 11, plus a three!

"Two in 3 billion is a very small number," science and statistics professor Arnold Barnett writes at CNN "At that risk per flight, a traveler could on average fly once a day for 4 million years before succumbing to a fatal crash." 

You're more likely to become president, or win a Nobel Prize. And all the while, that pesky .01% of germs will still be on your hands.
To shame antibacterial product producing companies. To shame.