Flying is the safest form of transport ... We know this because the airlines produce statistics to prove it. Almost everywhere, per million passenger kilometres, flying produces fewer fatalities than any other mode.

Ah, but ...

70 percent of aviation accidents are said to take place on take-off or landing (presumably not counting those that land unexpectedly). You have to take off once and land once whether flying from Melbourne to Sydney or Melbourne to Singapore. (Or Paris to New York on Concorde).

So using passenger kilometres as the unit of exposure is not really appropriate.

The following figures were derived from "Flight into Danger", an article in the New Scientist magazine published 7 August 1999.

Fatalities per 100 million units of exposure