The American Airlines Boeing 757-223 that crashed on approach to Cali, Colombia - there were a half-dozen survivors who had to wait for over a day on a mountaintop in bad weather, most of them badly injured, before rescuers got to them.
An Airbus that crashed in the Alps when the pilot mistakenly programmed the flight computer for a descent of 3000 feet per minute instead of an approach glide slope of 3.0 degrees - a number of people survived and had to wait several hours for rescuers to find them. Not all of them lived that long. The first ground personnel on the scene was a newspaper reporter who was sent to cover the crash; he had to give rescuers directions to the crash site via his cell phone.
The JAL 747 that crashed after the tail separated due to a faulty repair job a year earlier - there was one survivor found in a tree, badly injured. It was several hours before she was found, IIRC.
If the crash happens on or near a major airport, rescuers will be on the scene in minutes. Otherwise, the survivors could be in for a long wait.
Many accidents involving major airlines have less than 100% fatality rate. The United Airlines flight that crashed in Sioux City exploded on impact into a huge fireball, yet almost two-thirds of the people on board survived. (That was one of the accidents where rescuers were on the scene within seconds - they were sitting there ready to roll as the plane made its approach.)
I've heard the statistic that if you hopped an airliner at random every day of the year, you would have to fly for 12,500 years before you were involved in a fatal accident. And even then, you'd probably survive. I'm not exactly sure how they arrived at those figures, and I don't believe them, but assuming that only 1 commercial airline flight in a million has a fatal accident (which I think is pretty close to the actual statistics), and you took 693,000 such flights, your chances of being involved in a fatal accident would still be just under 50%. (That's one flight a day for 1,897 years.) It's not something I lose sleep over. <img src="/images/graemlins/cool.gif" alt="" />
But in the extremely unlikely event that you *do* crash, do not assume that (a) you will die, or (b) you will be rescued within the hour.
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"The mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be kindled."
-Plutarch