A friend of mine told me a story of her dad having a real close call when she was a kid (which would make it some time in 1970s). He was flying somewhere on business and sitting near the gate started reading a book that he got totally involved in and he missed the boarding of his flight which crashed. This was way before cell phones so he didn't think to call his wife to tell her he got re-booked to the next flight and for several hours she thought he died in the crash. My friend told me ever since then he called his wife before and after every single flight.

I've never had a flying related close call, my two close calls were losing control of my bike riding on the shoulder of the road and swerving into the car lane in the short span between cars (instead of into a car) and also many many moons ago losing control on a wet road of my rented car which turned out to have had bald tires and going off the highway into a field on the side of the road when half a mile further down it would have been a sharp drop off a cliff on the same side of that highway.

Ever since introduction of e-fares, my common weekend trips were out Saturday back Monday or Tuesday morning. I'm in SFO my parents used to be near EWR, so I'd taken United 93 EWR-SFO on Monday or Tuesday mornings a few times in 1999/2000/2001 time frame. That one really gave me pause.