How safe was flying in the 50s?

The (other) fear of flying. Just walking to the bathroom could lead to death in the 50s, when a turbulent stumble could bring passengers crashing down on sharp edges or cabin interiors built without safety in mind. And worse yet still, midair collisions in the 50s weren't an entirely uncommon occurrence.



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Mid-air collisions were fairly common prior to the Grand Canyon accident: one 1956 Aviation Week article noted that, between 1948 and 1955 there were 127 mid-air collisions in the U.S. with 30 involving commercial airliners; today, by comparison, the last major airline crash in the U.S. was now more than a decade ago.

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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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The ICAO attributes the improvements in safety to the safety commitments shared across the industry. In fact, the trend across many years of aviation is that, today, it is safer than ever to fly.

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Just like a car, the older an airplane gets the more maintenance it requires. Just like a car, however, given the proper care and maintenance an older plane can be just as safe and operable as a new version, albeit without some of the fuel efficient designs of new models.

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Commercial airplanes have to abide by strict safety standards regardless of the ticket class that the passengers are sitting in. As technology in the industry has advanced to have passenger safety as a principal consideration, airplane seats can withstand 16 times gravity's force.

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At the start of the commercial jet age, at the end of the 1950s, cruise speeds were about 450 knots. The majority of turbofan-powered aircraft in today's world fleet have average cruise speeds of about 500 knots (Jane's, 1998).

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But falling fares in the 1970s allowed many more people to fly and undermined the exclusivity of jet travel. Sweeping cultural changes in the 1960s and 1970s reshaped the airline industry. More people began to fly, and air travel became less exclusive. Between 1955 and 1972, passenger numbers more than quadrupled.

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In 2017, there were 10 fatal airliner accidents, resulting in 44 occupant fatalities and 35 persons on the ground: the safest year ever for commercial aviation, both by the number of fatal accidents as well as in fatalities.

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Security screenings didn't become mandatory until the early 1970s when bigger flights meant more passengers. Security screenings didn't become mandatory until 1973, and even those were pretty relaxed compared to the airport security we go through today, The Boston Globe reported.

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On average, an aircraft is operable for about 30 years before it has to be retired. A Boeing 747 can endure about 35,000 pressurization cycles and flights—roughly 135,000 to 165,000 flight hours—before metal fatigue sets in. 747s are retired after approximately 27 years of service.

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There has not been a fatal crash involving a major U.S. airline since February 2009, when a Continental flight crashed into a house near Buffalo, killing all 49 people on board.

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The annual risk of being killed in a plane crash for the average American is about 1 in 11 million. On that basis, the risk looks pretty small. Compare that, for example, to the annual risk of being killed in a motor vehicle crash for the average American, which is about 1 in 5,000.

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Reflecting this increase in miles flown, preliminary estimates of the total number of accidents involving a U.S. registered civilian aircraft increased from 1,139 in 2020 to 1,225 in 2021. The number of civil aviation deaths increased from 349 in 2020 to 376 in 2021.

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