Air Crash Deaths Fell By More Than Half In 2019

The number of casualties in large commercial plane crashes around the globe fell by more than half in 2019, according to Dutch aviation consultancy To70.

In 2019 there were 86 accidents, 8 of which were fatal, resulting in 257 fatalities, whereas in 2018 there were 160 accidents, 13 of which were fatal, resulting in 534 fatalities, the firm said.

Fatal accidents to large passenger aircraft remain rare events, despite two high-profile accidents this past year: an Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737 MAX and an Aeroflot Sukhoi Superjet, and an accident to a Fokker 100 just before the year’s end.

To70 said these follow a historic low in 2017 with only two fatal accidents involving regional turboprops that resulted in the loss of 13 lives. Only two other accidents, a piston aircraft in March and a turboprop in November, resulted in more than 10 casualties.

The firm said the fatal accident rate for large airplanes in commercial air transport was just 0.18 (2018: 0.20) fatal accidents per million flights in 2019, which is an average of one fatal accident every 5.58 million flights, according to the report. Despite a number of high profile accidents, this year’s fatal accident rate is lower than the average of the last five years.

The fatality numbers include passengers, aircrew such as flight attendants and any people on the ground killed in a plane accident.