Have Plane Crashes Become More Frequent?
The video of hair-raising near-misses of flight accidents has now become a frequent trend on social media. Further fueling alarm, the recent incident of a plane flipping over after landing in poor weather in Toronto, Canada, has heightened concerns. Harrowing events like mid-air collisions or planes flipping upon landing seemingly appear more common. These incidents also seem to impact consumer confidence in flying.
However, data from the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), a UN body responsible for monitoring global air accidents, shows that the number of worldwide accidents per million plane departures has seen a clear downward trend between 2005 and 2023. Over the past two decades, a general decline in air accidents has been observed. The ICAO’s definition of an aircraft accident is broad and includes not only incidents where passengers or crew are seriously injured or killed but also cases where an aircraft is damaged and requires repairs or even goes missing.
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According to an investigation by BBC Variety, after major crashes, the causes of the accident are thoroughly examined. The findings and new data are then integrated into pilot training simulators to help pilots prepare for similar scenarios in the future. Regulators can also impose penalties for safety violations, including fines, license suspensions, and operational restrictions. Airlines that fail to adhere to safety standards may even face bans from certain countries or regions.
Despite the recent increase in reported plane crashes, aviation safety experts assert that these incidents do not indicate a larger trend of declining aviation safety but are instead a grim set of coincidences. “Flying today is extraordinarily safe,” says Arnold Barnett, a professor of statistics at the MIT Sloan School of Management, who has published studies on aviation safety statistics. According to his research, the death risk per passenger boarding is approximately 1 in 100 million. To put it simply, “every day, 12 million people board flights somewhere in the world,” Barnett explains. “On the overwhelming majority of days, not a single traveler is injured, let alone killed.”
So, what’s really going on? According to NTSB data, there have been 115 aviation accidents and incidents so far this year. However, this figure represents an improvement compared to earlier statistics, and experts classify the frequent crashes as coincidences rather than a deteriorating trend.
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Even with all the reassurances, there are still areas of aviation safety that officials continue to work on. Workforce shortages across the industry, from air traffic controllers to airline pilots, remain a significant concern. Other issues include aging airport infrastructure and the need to tighten oversight on aircraft manufacturers like Boeing, which has faced a series of crashes and incidents involving its 737 Max planes. These are challenges that experts are actively addressing.
Given all the available data and studies, one can confidently say that there is no reason to avoid air travel. As Barnett puts it, “Statistically, it makes about as much sense to fear death in a U.S. plane crash as to avoid the supermarket for fear that the ceiling will collapse, and that’s the same for the planes across the globe.
