How safe was flying in the 1930s?

Not for the faint of heart. According to Gizmodo, planes would regularly drop hundreds of feet mid air with no warning. Today's gentle alerts from the cabin to return to your seat and buckle up as the plane may experience some coming turbulence were born out of the horror of this era's actually turbulent flights.



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The most fatalities in any aviation accident in history occurred during 1977 in the Tenerife airport disaster, when 583 people were killed when two Boeing 747s collided on a runway.

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Evolution. In 1926 and 1927, there were a total of 24 fatal commercial airline crashes, a further 16 in 1928, and 51 in 1929 (killing 61 people), which remains the worst year on record at an accident rate of about 1 for every 1,000,000 miles (1,600,000 km) flown.

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Aircraft age is not a safety factor. However, if the aircraft is older and hasn't been refurbished properly, it may cause flyers some inconvenience such as overheating, faulty air conditioning, or faulty plumbing in the lavatory. More important than an aircraft's age is its history.

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It cost an arm and a leg (or half a car). A roundtrip ticket from coast to coast cost about $260 in the 1930's. Some context: the average automobile at the time cost just double that. Flying was an exciting new thrill, but only for the few who could afford it.

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According to the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), aviation has become the first ultra-safe transportation system in history. That means that for every ten million cycles (one cycle involves both a takeoff and landing), there is less than one catastrophic failure.

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Macready and Lt. Oakley G. Kelly made the first nonstop transcontinental flight on May 2–3, 1923, in the T-2 transport. They took off from Roosevelt Field, Long Island, and landed at Rockwell Field, San Diego, 2,470 miles and just under 27 hours later.

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According to Drela, today's airplane builders actually favor a smaller, lighter, and therefore slower aircraft that peaks its fuel efficiency at slower speeds. (Cars also become more efficient at slower speeds on highways.)

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