New app 'predicts likelihood of plane crash'

Travellers with a fear of flying should be reassured that the chances of them crashing are only one in nine million, according to the maker of an app called “Am I Going Down?”

That is, however, unless you are flying between Hong Kong and Los Angeles with Cathay Pacific on a Boeing 777, in which case they are more like one in 4,068,434. Which is worse, of course, but not significantly so. And knowledge is power, right?

An American Airlines flight between San Francisco and London Heathrow with American Airlines on an Airbus 330 is also very slightly more likely to crash, according to the app which gives it odds of one in 2,783,874.

The service allows users to calculate the odds for every flight they take in the hope that all those zeroes will calm pre-flight nerves.

It lets you select airline and aircraft models (each ranked by their safety records), along with the departure and destination details, in order to calculate the final odds of “going down”.

If that’s not enough perspective for you, in the British Airways example above (based on taking a 747 from London to New York), a one in 9,283,062 chance of crashing equates to the plane going down once every 25,433 years, supposing you were to take the same flight every day.

Within the airline rankings, the app includes the number of years since an airline’s last fatal incident.

As it can only be downloaded onto an iPhone at the moment, Android users will have to console themselves with the fact that – even without the odds to hand - crashing is very, very unlikely.