Comment by epihelix

True. But, these are still odd outliers in terms of low life expectancy, and that's something that the actual BMJ article cited (https://www.bmj.com/content/387/bmj-2024-082194) or TFA talks about at all. The LE is low enough for both professions to be awkward.

I'm also a little concerned that the BMJ plot of risk adjusted mortality still shows a clear positive correlation with age at death, which I strongly suspect would turn out to be statistically significant. The adjustment does not appear to be correct, therefore, and while that might still preserve these odd findings, it's definitely not ideal.

The much better occupation, from the graph, is the third outlier -- mining and geological engineers. Life expectancy: 80.3, risk-adjusted mortality: 1.1%. Or, alternatively, economists are close too (80.6; 1.19%).

Aircraft pilots, btw, really were the opposite end of the scale (78.1; 2.3%), surprising enough to be noteworthy beyond a control (the BMJ article does discuss this a little, but seriously -- that's very surprising for a highly-educated profession).