Safety in the air

In Friday's USA Today, there was a cover story about the the fact that there hasn't been a U.S. airline passenger death in over 4 1/2 years. The story attributed this improved safety rating to 1) better technology--specifically the FAA-required ground-detection equipment which alerts pilots when they're accidentally flying into terrain or water (the leading cause of death in airline accidents between 1987 to 2004) -and- 2) better pilot and crew training.

Since 2000, the odds of a crash are one in 22.8 million flights. Most startling to me is the following perspective: at the aforementioned rate, a traveler would have to fly every day for more than 64,000 years before dying in an accident.