AIRLINE SAFETY
Despite the horrifying film footage you have seen in recent months, it is still tough to make money by dying in a plane crash. In the period beginning 1980 and ending a couple of months ago, only 0.0002% of all scheduled commercial flights around the world had accidents involving one or more fatalities. That’s 499,999 to 1 against a crash. Despite this year’s soaring death totals, the record for all of 1985 could still come in at around half a million to one. What’s really different about this year is that the crashes have involved larger aircraft than usual. In addition to long odds, the investor seeking to beat this game has to contend with quite a bit of padding. Those characters you see at booths around the airport are generally offering you only 30,000 to 1 or so. The insurance “takeout” — that is, the premium income not recycled to the heirs of crashers — seems to be always well over…
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