Being a survivor of an airplane crash is more of a mental state. If you have faith & strength to survive an emergency situation your odds of surviving improves dramatically. Some people may not agree with me. Some people believe when it comes to airline accidents that  when its the pilots time, then its your time also. But, the facts are flying is safe, but when there is an airline crash most people survive. Its hard to believe that  especially when just this past weekend we had a Continental Express commuter plane gone down with 50 fatalities. Flight 3407 was the first fatal airline crash for this year, & the first in two and a half years. Keep in mind last month we had a Airbus 320 crash in the Hudson river with everyone surviving. Some people didn't even get their feet wet. In December 2008 we had a Continental Airlines B-737 crash in Denver while attempting to takeoff  crash with no fatal injuries. A couple of days ago there was a British Airways Express commuter airline crash landed on the runway in London, UK with no fatalities. In January 2008 we had a B-777 British Airways jumbo jet with over 300 people crash land after losing both engines while attempting to land in London last year again with no fatalities. In 2006 there was a Air France Airbus 330 jumbo jet crashed landed in Toronto with no fatalities. I know this may seem like a lot of accidents in the past couple of years, but the facts are there are only an average of 1 fatal airline accident a year with an average of one 100 deaths a year from airline disasters. The vast majority of people do survive airline accidents. Approximately  76% of people survive according to author Sherwood in his book Survivors club. In his book, he describes interviewing many people who all say the same thing that they all had a strong will to survive. Thiy listen to the flight attendant briefings, & they remember where the emergency exits are. These people had a mental will to survive anything.