[astrodust]

Intentional or not, there have been, at most, three passenger jets hit by anti-aircraft missiles in the last thirty years.

Keep in mind that even if this happened once a year, flying would still be far, far safer than driving.

[dragonwriter]

> Intentional or not, there have been, at most, three passenger jets hit by anti-aircraft missiles in the last thirty years.

At most 3 is incorrect.

Not counting MH17, there are at least four civilian passenger aircraft that were definitively shot down by missiles, and more that were suspected to be (or were definitively shot down, but where I can't find definitive information on the "by missiles" part) in the last 30 years:

LN 602 (March 23, 2007): attributed to the Tamil Tigers using Manpad missiles

Siberia Airlines 1812 (October 4, 2001): admitted shot down by Ukrainian military

Two Transair Georgia flights (September 21-22, 1993): shot down by missiles fired by rebels

Iran Air 655 (July 3, 1988): shot down by the USS Vincennes

Air Malawi 7Q-YMB (November 6, 1987): shot down by Mozambique (can't find anything one way or the other about whether this was "by anti-aircraft missiles" rather than, say, guns, so maybe not technically within scope.)

[tigerente]

Also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerolinee_Itavia_Flight_870, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Rhodesia_Flight_RH825, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Rhodesia_Flight_RH827, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_Air_Lines_Flight_902, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libyan_Arab_Airlines_Flight_114, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polar_3, T&G Aviation DC-7 and more shot down by fighter aircraft.

There are far more than a dozen incidents in the past decades.

[dragonwriter]

Those (and KAL 007) are all outside of the thirty year window, but within a 40-year window. But, yes, there are lots of past incidents.

[astrodust]

That's a good list. I was only thinking of the Tamil, Iran and Malawi incidents.

[mylons]

I realize this is a different mode of transportation, but what about German U-Boats (and I'm sure other nations) sinking passenger ships in the start of WW2? Attacks on civilian vessels shouldn't be tolerated.

[nashequilibrium]

I will take a car crash over a plane crash any day!

[astrodust]

Vehicle fatalities in the United States are at a new low, but are still 33,000 people per year.

If 30,000 people a year died in plane crashes the planes would literally have to be falling out of the sky on fire every single day.

[nashequilibrium]

how many cars on the road vs planes in the sky?