2016 Was One of the Safest Years in Aviation History

Despite a series of high-profile crashes, this was actually one of the safest years to fly.

The memory of the Colombia plane crash that claimed 71 lives, including most of a Brazilian soccer team, is still fresh in our minds—enough that to say this year was one of the safest in modern aviation history almost seems gaudy. But the numbers don't lie: According to the Aviation Safety Network, a crash-data website funded by the Flight Safety Foundation (an international and independent nonprofit organization that tracks crash data), 18 civilian airplane accidents accounted for 320 deaths worldwide in 2016. The only year with fewer deaths was 2013, as The Telegraph reported, with 265.

In 1970, when the World Bank started tracking the movement of people by air, 310 million passengers took commercial flights worldwide. In 2016, that figure exceeded 3.5 billion.


The good news? Global air travel continues to get safer, in part thanks to tech upgrades to airplanes, better safety procedures, and increased collaboration among nations to improve aviation infrastructure in developing countries. The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration credits these changes to the Commercial Aviation Safety Team, a government-industry co-op formed in 1998, tasked with reducing the commercial aviation fatality rate in the United States by 80 percent by 2008. (They broke their own goal, dropping rates to 83 percent.)

We shouldn't just look at the number of crashes or deaths—the number of passengers flying each year matters, too: In 1970, when the World Bank started tracking the movement of people by air, 310 million passengers took commercial flights worldwide. In 2016, that figure should exceed 3.5 billion.

Factoring in this staggering growth, the odds of dying in a crash have been on the decline. This year, the rate of plane-crash fatalities was just one out of every 10,937,500 passengers. The only year with slightly safer odds was—again—2013, when it was one out every 11,501,886 passengers.

These numbers are based on commercial (non-military) planes certified to carry 14 or more passengers. One variable that can dramatically skew a year’s safety record is sabotage—a hijacking, a suicidal pilot, an attack by artillery. Aviation Safety Network’s database offers two separate data points each year, with and without those outliers. If the security events are tossed out, 2015 was actually the safest year, with just 186 deaths. But the Germanwings crash (the plane was intentionally brought down by the captain) in March 2015 and the Metrojet crash (brought down by a bomb) in October of that year raised the total air travel deaths to 560.

Never have there been more people in the sky, and yet there were fewer deaths in the 2000s than in all previous decades in modern aviation history. Even the 691 lost lives on commercial jets in 2014—a year riddled with high-profile crashes, including AirAsia, Air Algerie, and two Malaysia Airlines flights—pales in comparison to every year in the 1970s. Every year in that decade saw more than 1,000 plane-crash casualties, with 1972 being the deadliest year, claiming 2,373 lives.

While a year will occasionally spike in the charts, the overall rate of crashes and death by commercial flight is trending downward. As governments continue to collaborate on improving safety standards and as airlines across the globe take delivery of new aircraft with better technology, the forecast calls for continually improving safety in the skies. Bring it on, 2017.