"Ron Parsons" wrote in message
...
My understanding is that in the Alaskan population, 1 in 4 is a licensed
pilot.

If that were so, then 25% of licensed US pilots would be Alaskan (the
population there is over 600,000). Unless Alaskan pilots fly much less
often than pilots elsewhere in the US, we'd therefore expect at least 25% of
aviation fatalities to be in Alaska, since flying there is at least as
dangerous as flying in the rest of the US. In fact, though, only 4% of
fatal US aviation accidents occur in Alaska (according to the NTSB
database).

Based on the nature of flying in Alaska, I would suspect that the
percentage of commercial pilots is higher than the lower 48 as well.

According to Alaska's Department of Labor, there are about 3,000
professional pilots
there(http://www.labor.state.ak.us/research/odb/02/ak02.xls),

--Gary