In fact, sometimes the things that seem deadliest aren't so much deadly as they are inconvenient. For example ...

We have previously pointed out that fewer people die in shark attacks than are killed by cows . But sharks are hardly the only danger the world loves to overhype.

7 You Have a 96 Percent Chance of Surviving a Plane Crash

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You constantly hear about how safe air travel is, how rarely planes crash and how you're many times more likely to die in a car accident. All of that is true. But the reason we still get a bit nervous when strapping in for a flight is because we know that if the plane does go down, we are screwed.

A car accident you might walk away from. But you're not walking away from a flimsy aluminum tube plummeting 30,000 feet and smashing into the ground. Right?

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And if you survive the crash, you still have those polar bears to contend with.

Actually ...

You probably will. Out of the collective 53,487 people involved in plane crashes in the U.S. from 1983 to 2000, 51,207 survived. That's nearly a 96 percent survival rate.

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If you're wondering how that's possible, just look at something like Aloha Airlines Flight 243. That plane had half of its fuselage ripped off in midair after an explosive decompression:

Via Aloha.net

The sky filled with John Grisham novels and half-empty cans of cranapple juice.

But, as is often the case, the pilot successfully got it onto the ground in a way that did not cause it to erupt in a giant fireball. As a result, out of 94 people, only one person died on that flight (the one person who wasn't strapped to her seat when the plane fell apart -- hey, that's why they have those seat belts!).

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Here's a flight from 2001 where the plane lost both engines at 33,000 feet and was still 135 miles from the airport. Oh, and they also lost all hydraulic power, so they couldn't operate the flaps or brakes. The pilot muscled the dead aircraft into a series of gentle 360-degree turns to reduce speed and altitude until the aircraft glided to the airport, where the pilot could carefully set it down on the runway. No one was killed.