When I was growing up I knew several couples who always flew separately. I certainly don't think it is necessary.

I also don't think a trip with my husband would be adversely affected if we didn't fly together--the airplane parts of the trip are not exactly fun or romantic for us.

A friend of mine, while on a business trip to London; looked the wrong way before stepping into the street and got killed by a truck. Point is, a meteor, a bus, a bad oyster, a meth crazed mugger, etc. etc. you cannot plan for these events; and as it has been well stated here, statistically, the most dangerous part of your trip is the ground portion to/from the airport.

I do a lot of mountain climbing with my kids. It's a little known fact that most insurance companies won't pay life or health insurance for mountaineers, which is conveniently defined as the arbitrary elevation of 10,000'. Yes people die in that activity. Yes I've been in places where a single step in the wrong direction would lead to certain death. And I've had my kids with me.

I ride a bike. With my kids. People get killed every day on bikes. I do lots of things that can get me killed.

So what? Full speed ahead, and damn the torpedoes! Don't let the wooses out there run your life.

Let's put it this way: If the plane goes down, and you die, your child will be in good hands.

Would it be any different if you took your kid with you? That way, all of you die...

And with apologies to Gen. Patton,

When you're sucking your gums by the fire, and your grandson asks you "What great adventures did you have when you were young?" You won't have to say, "I stayed home because it was safe."

''One response is that flying separately, you double your chances of something happening to one of you.''

<<Actually it doesn't. To get the correct risk of you both being affected by incidents in separate aircraft, you have to multiply together the chances of each one of you being an accident, which will give you a smaller, not larger 'risk'. The chances of each one of you being in an accident remain the same - the chances of both of you being affected are minute>>

Actually, it does. The comment wasn't about both being in an accident when in two separate planes, which would be a smaller risk, but the probability that one of them would be in an accident. It does double the risk if both take separate planes because each plane has its own small risk of an accident, so the risk of an accident to either one of them would be the sum of those two separate risks if they were on separate flights. Roughly--of course different flights do not have equal risks, depending on flight records, airline, age of equipment, etc., but speaking broadly.

But the original question is about reducing the risk of leaving children as orphans, by having parents flying on different aircraft, not how likely an individual flight is to be involved in a fatal crash.

Sending the parents on different flights DOES reduce the risk of no parent surviving, without any question. It's a mathamatical fact. The chances of either parent being involved in an accident are increased slightly, but the chances of both being involved are decreased, maasively. Thus if the question is how to improve survival chances of at least one parent to avoid leaving orphans (which is what the OP is asking us to consider) two flights are the mathamatically correct answer.

Though whether you, I or anyone else, think it's really worth the fuss and bother, given the fact that the chance of experiencing a fatal crash is of the order 1 in 11 million, is another matter entirely. But that's not what the OP asked.....

Truly, no one can weigh this decision for you... if it is worth the hassle of you splitting up and flying on two separate flights because of the miniscule chance of a plane crash. I wouldn't touch this one with a 10 foot pole.

The corporate policy of "splitting up executives on trips" now borders on a folklore approach to risk management. Most progressive companies carry very large "keyman" insurance policies on execs. to get them through the disruption of a loss of a group of management personnel.