Tupolev Tu-104 at Letecké muzeum Kbely, Picture 2, Edited version, Kbely, Prague, 2014

The textbook trivia answer as to the first jet airliner, is obviously the DeHavilland D.H. 106 Comet, introduced in 1952 after a 3-year testing period. However, it was initially a disaster, quite literally, as four crashed fatally in only the first two years of operation. Later variants fared better (after the initial losses were traced to a badly-designed fuselage that couldn't deal with both pressurization and high subsonic flight), although in total 26 of 114 Comets were lost, a rate of 22.8%. The second ever jet airliner to be introduced was the Tupolev Tu-104, seen here, and it fared far better. Introduced in 1956, 204 were built, and 32 lost to crashes (37 were lost in total, as 5 were destroyed by terrorists), a loss rate of 15%, if you exclude terrorist attacks. In addition, many Tu-104 crashes were non-fatal, to the point were over a third of passengers survived on average. A particularly notable incident was the first one, in 1958, where the pilot successfully landed with no engines (they had run out of fuel) albeit short of the runway. The reason this Tu-104 is displayed at Kbely, though, has nothing to do with any accident. Instead, it is significant to Czech aviation history because CSA were the only export customer for the Tu-104, thus making them only the third airline in the world (after BOAC and Aeroflot) to operate jet airliners. Another surviving CSA Tu-104 can be seen in a park in Olomouc, where it has been converted to "The Aeroplane Bar."