2017 safest for air travel; 0 fatalities reported for passenger planes
There were no passenger jets crashes anywhere in the world, separate reports by Dutch consultancy To70 and The Aviation Safety Network found.
This was despite more flights being made than ever before. But To70 warned that despite high safety levels on passenger planes, the “extraordinarily” low accident rate must be seen as “good fortune”.
To70 estimated that the fatal accident rate for large commercial passenger flights is 0.06 per million flights, or one fatal accident for every 16 million flights. The Aviation Safety Network also reported there were no commercial passenger jet deaths in 2017, but 10 fatal airliner accidents resulting in 44 fatalities on board and 35 persons on the ground, including cargo planes and commercial passenger turbo prop aircraft.
In 2017, among the airline accidents, five involved cargo flights and five were passenger flights. One out of 10 accident airplanes was operated by an airline on the EU “blacklist”.
Given the expected worldwide air traffic of about 36,800,000 flights, the accident rate is one fatal passenger flight accident per 7,360,000 flights.
The low number of accidents comes as no surprise, according to ASN President Harro Ranter. Ranter said, “Since 1997, the average number of airliner accidents has shown a steady and persistent decline, for a great deal thanks to the continuing safety-driven efforts by international aviation organisations such as ICAO, IATA, Flight Safety Foundation and the aviation industry.”
Aviation deaths have been steadily falling for the last two decades. In 2005, there were more than 1,000 deaths on-board commercial passenger flights worldwide, the Aviation Safety Network said.
The last fatal passenger jet airliner accident took place in November 2016 in Colombia, and the last commercial passenger aircraft crash to kill more than 100 people occurred in Egypt a year earlier.
