Flying Ranks As Most Dangerous Profession

Only loggers are as likely as pilots to get killed on the job, according to a report released last Thursday by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). Both professions had a fatality rate of 92.4 per 100,000 workers for 2004, the BLS said, ranking above fisheries workers (86.4 per 100,000), and structural iron and steel workers (47 per 100,000). A total of 109 pilots died on the job. Of those, 22 were flight crew for airlines and 87 were commercial pilots. The numbers were down slightly from the 2003 data, when 114 pilots died on the job.