Understanding this stastistic

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I don't understand this statistic. I found it on a plane crash website.

Odds of being involved in a fatal accident

Odds of being on an airline flight which results in at least one fatality.

1 in 18.56 million

Odds of being killed on a single airline flight

1 in 10.87 million

Wouldn't the odds of being on a flight with one fatality be higher (i.e. better chance, 1 in 8 million )than the odds of being killed on a flight? A plane could crash and someone else could die, but you could survive.

I think its how the words are interpreted. I could be wrong but
one interpretation would be.

the first is the odds of being on a plane that just crashed now

the second is the odds of dieing during a flight you are on now

or something like that

It just means that not everyone dies(usually) when a plane crashes.

Yes, but if a plane crashes on the border between France, Switzerland and Germany where do they bury the survivors?

Where-ever cows drink milk, but only after you put start putting un-toasted bread in a toaster.

Another way of looking at it could be to interpret the second statistic as you and Kevin have interpreted it, but to interpret the first statistic as meaning "the probability that any given person in the entire world will, over their entire lifetime, ever be on a flight that involves a fatality". This would then include people who never take a flight in their lives.

In fact, I am still thinking about this as I type, and I think you (Val) are probably right. Given that a fatal plane crash has just occurred, the probability that any given person is on it would be the capacity of an aircraft divided by the population of the world, I think.
I.e., 300 / 6 billion equals about 1 in 18 million. The sums seem to work, but it seems like a very silly statistic! You could use that sort of logic to prove that almost anything is safe.

People die on flights all the time. Flying is stressful, it tends to bump off old people with only a foot in the grave. If those are included, that might explain the numbers.

That seems very reasonable if "Odds of being on an airline flight which results in at least one fatality" actually means deaths caused only by crashes, excluding in-flight etc deaths and "Odds of being killed on a single airline flight" actually means all deaths associated with or during a flight. (The difference is very obvious if you substitute births for deaths).

I was thinking that the website was probably a random collection of facts from various sources, varying in data, definitions and quality.

Yes, but if a plane crashes on the border between France, Switzerland and Germany where do they bury the survivors?

If my geography is correct, they're cremated at CERN...

Why would you bury survivors?

So they caint talk to the press.

I think you're right: there's something fishy with the numbers.

Okay, I looked it up, and I get a different set of numbers.

from http://www.planecrashinfo.com/cause.htm
Source: OAG Aviation & PlaneCrashInfo.com accident database, 1985 - 2009

While my numbers make more logical sense, they're a bit more of a downer in terms of chances of survival.

FWIW, I really dislike that they use "fatality" vs. "killed". Would you say someone with a heart attack or pulmonary embolism "got killed"? More like "died". Unless they really are excluding deaths by medical condition, in which case, this is not an apples/apples comparison.

Well, you know what they say (whoever "they" are): there are lies, damned lies, and statistics.

The odds of being on a flight where someone dies, OK

Both sets of numbers say, it's a 50-50 chance that someone is you.

Poorly explained statistics.

Odds of being on an airline flight which results in at least one fatality. = 1 in 18.56 million

This is the odds of you being on a flight where at least one person dies. It does not say if it means crashes only or any incident which could result in someone dying on the flight (e.g., heart attack).

Odds of being killed on a single airline flight. = 1 in 10.87 million

This is the odds of you personally dying on any individual flight. It does not say if it means crashes only or any incident which could result in your death (e.g., YOU having a heart attack).

That is the essence of the joke / tease. It is a very old childhood joke where kids start to debate where the people should be buried based on various criteria such as nationality before the teaser points out the "survivors" bit. I thought this was a well known joke / tease?