Walking away from a plane crash

My memory bank for aircraft accidents is pretty good, but I’m not ready to say there’s never been a crash of a 737 jetliner with the death of only one person. It happened on Colombia’s an Andres Island early this morning. Apparently, the plane was hit by lightning as it landed.

“It was a miracle and we have to give thanks to God,” that only one person died, said Gov. Pedro Gallardo.

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What are the odds of surviving such a crash? Not as good as the odds you’d be in a commercial jetliner crash in the first place (the odds are 1 in about two million). But the odds are better than you might think. According to the site, planecrashinfo.com, the survival rate for passengers in crashes where 10 or more people die is 24% in this decade, a number skewed a bit by 9/11.