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Air Traffic Fatalities Statistics: Trends and Insights for 2026
In 2025, commercial aviation recorded 394 on-board fatalities, more than in any year since 2018. In the same year, a passenger's odds of dying on a flight stayed close to one in 13.7 million boardings. Both statements are true, and holding them together is the whole point of this page.
Aviation safety is easy to misread. A single catastrophic accident can dominate a year's death toll while the underlying rate of flying keeps improving, decade after decade. For a traveller deciding whether to feel safe, a journalist reporting a crash, or a regulator setting priorities, the difference between a bad year and a worsening trend is everything. This page separates the two using primary data from IATA, the US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), and peer-reviewed research.
Key Air Traffic Fatalities Statistics at a Glance
- One fatal accident for every 5.6 million flights across 2021 to 2025, up from one per 3.5 million a decade earlier.
Source: IATA 2025 Annual Safety Report, 2026 - 1.32 accidents per million flights in 2025, roughly one accident for every 760,000 flights.
Source: IATA 2025 Annual Safety Report, 2026 - 51 accidents among 38.7 million flights in 2025, of which 8 were fatal.
Source: IATA 2025 Annual Safety Report, 2026 - 394 on-board fatalities in 2025, against a five-year average of 198.
Source: IATA 2025 Annual Safety Report, 2026 - 244 on-board fatalities in 2024, the year before, and only 72 in 2023.
Source: IATA 2024 and 2025 Annual Safety Reports, 2025-2026 - 1 death per 13.7 million boardings worldwide in 2018 to 2022, the safest period yet measured.
Source: Barnett and Reig Torra, Journal of Air Transport Management, 2024 - Roughly 1 in 80 million boardings in the safest group of countries, including the US, EU, Japan and Australia.
Source: Barnett and Reig Torra, Journal of Air Transport Management, 2024 - 1 death per 350,000 boardings in 1968 to 1977, showing how far the risk has fallen.
Source: Barnett and Reig Torra, Journal of Air Transport Management, 2024 - 0.72 vs 3.09 accidents per million flights for IATA member airlines versus non-members in 2025.
Source: IATA 2025 Annual Safety Report, 2026 - 0.98 vs 2.55 per million flights for IOSA-audited carriers versus non-audited operators.
Source: IATA 2025 Annual Safety Report, 2026 - Africa recorded 7.86 accidents per million flights in 2025, the highest region; North Asia the lowest at 0.16.
Source: IATA 2025 Annual Safety Report, 2026 - Turboprops: 4.08 per million flights versus 1.03 for jets in 2025.
Source: IATA 2025 Annual Safety Report, 2026 - 3 of 3,447 US civil aviation deaths from 2015 to 2024 occurred on scheduled airlines, about 0.09 percent.
Source: NTSB civil aviation data, 2015-2024 - 93 percent of US aviation deaths were in general aviation, not on the airlines most people fear.
Source: NTSB civil aviation data, 2015-2024 - Two accidents caused 77 percent of 2025's on-board deaths: Air India 171 and American Eagle flight 5342.
Source: IATA 2025 Annual Safety Report, 2026 - 321 total US civil aviation deaths in 2024, down from 327 in 2023, with none on a scheduled airline.
Source: NTSB preliminary data, 2024
How Rare a Fatal Flight Has Become
The clearest way to measure passenger risk is simple: if you hold a boarding pass, what are the odds you do not survive the flight? The MIT researcher Arnold Barnett has tracked exactly this for decades, and the long trend is steep and consistent.
Source: Arnold Barnett and Jan Reig Torra, Journal of Air Transport Management, August 2024. Figures are global deaths per passenger boarding, shown as boardings per fatality.
The risk of dying on a flight has fallen from one in 350,000 boardings in the late 1960s to one in 13.7 million in 2018 to 2022. Put differently, flying today is roughly 39 times safer per boarding than it was fifty years ago. This is the backdrop against which every single year, good or bad, should be read. For the wider picture on how the sector has grown alongside these gains, see our airline industry insights.
On-Board Fatalities by Year, 2021 to 2025
Annual death tolls are volatile because they depend on a handful of rare events. A single wide-body accident can lift a year far above its neighbours, even when the number of flights, and the rate of accidents, barely moves.
Source: IATA, 2025 Annual Safety Report, published 9 March 2026. Prior-year figures from the corresponding IATA reports.
The 2023 figure of 72 on-board fatalities was among the lowest ever recorded. The jump to 244 in 2024 and 394 in 2025 looks alarming until you see what caused it. Two accidents accounted for more than three quarters of all 2025 deaths.
Accident | Date | On-board fatalities |
Air India flight 171 (Boeing 787, Ahmedabad) | 12 June 2025 | 241 |
American Eagle flight 5342 (PSA Airlines CRJ700, Washington) | 29 January 2025 | 64 |
All other fatal accidents in 2025 (6 events) | 2025 | 89 |
Air India 171 killed 241 of the 242 people on board, the first fatal loss of a Boeing 787. The mid-air collision involving American Eagle flight 5342 near Washington killed 64 on the airliner and was the first major US scheduled-airline crash since 2009. Together the two events explain the 2025 spike without any deterioration in the day-to-day safety of flying.
What Actually Moves the Accident Rate
If the yearly death toll is a poor guide to risk, what is a good one? The accident rate per million flights, broken down by aircraft type and by safety oversight, tells a steadier story about where danger concentrates.
Source: IATA, 2025 Annual Safety Report, published 9 March 2026.
Two patterns stand out. Turboprops, which often serve remote routes and smaller operators, had an accident rate of 4.08 per million flights, about four times the jet rate of 1.03. And independent oversight matters: airlines on the IATA Operational Safety Audit registry recorded 0.98 accidents per million flights against 2.55 for carriers not on it. The audit is not magic, but it is a reliable marker of the systems that prevent accidents. Our passenger airlines statistics put these operators in context.
Safety Still Depends on Where You Fly
Aviation is global, but its safety is not evenly distributed. Regional accident rates in 2025 spanned a wide range, and the gap reflects differences in infrastructure, oversight, and fleet age rather than anything about flying itself.
Source: IATA, 2025 Annual Safety Report, published 9 March 2026.
Africa recorded 7.86 accidents per million flights, far above every other region, while North Asia, Asia-Pacific and the Middle East all sat below the global average. The MIT research reaches the same conclusion from the passenger's side: the safest tier of countries runs at roughly one death per 80 million boardings, while the least safe tier carries about 36 times that risk. Where you board a plane still shapes the odds more than almost anything else.
Flying is the safest form of long-distance travel. Every accident is one too many.
Willie Walsh, Director General, IATA, on the 2025 Annual Safety Report.
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In the United States, the Airlines Are Not the Risk
Public fear tends to focus on scheduled airlines, yet in the US the data points almost entirely elsewhere. Across the ten years from 2015 to 2024, the NTSB recorded 3,447 civil aviation deaths. The split by operation type is stark.
Source: NTSB civil aviation accident data, 2015-2024. Part 91 is general aviation; Part 135 is air taxi and charter; Part 121 is scheduled airlines.
General aviation accounted for 3,212 of those deaths, about 93 percent, in private and recreational flying. Scheduled airlines accounted for just 3. In both 2023 and 2024 no US scheduled airline passenger died, part of a safety record stretching back to 2009. That streak ended in January 2025 with American Eagle flight 5342, which is why the single event weighs so heavily on the year. For the airlines carrying most of that traffic, see the largest airlines in North America.
The Long Trend: Fatal Accidents Keep Getting Rarer
Step back from any single year and the direction is unmistakable. IATA measures how many flights occur, on average, between fatal accidents, and that number keeps climbing.
Source: IATA, 2025 Annual Safety Report, published 9 March 2026.
A decade ago the industry saw one fatal accident for every 3.5 million flights. Across 2021 to 2025 that figure improved to one per 5.6 million flights, even as annual traffic rose toward 40 million flights a year. Rising passenger numbers, tracked in our airline passenger traffic data, mean more people are exposed, which is exactly why the falling rate matters.
With so few fatal accidents each year, single events swing the totals sharply. Annual death counts should be read alongside the multi-year accident rate, not on their own.
Outlook
The honest reading of the data is neither alarm nor complacency. Fatal accidents are extremely rare and, measured per flight or per boarding, keep getting rarer. At the same time, a small number of high-casualty accidents will continue to produce volatile yearly totals, and real gaps remain between the safest and least safe regions. Progress from here depends on the unglamorous work that produced it: audits, better runway environments, and consistent global standards.
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References and Sources
- IATA. 2025 Annual Safety Report. Press release and executive summary, 9 March 2026. iata.org
- IATA. 2024 Annual Safety Report. Press release, 26 February 2025. iata.org
- Arnold Barnett and Jan Reig Torra. "Deaths per passenger boarding," Journal of Air Transport Management, August 2024. news.mit.edu
- NTSB. US Civil Aviation Accident Dashboard, 2008-2024 and civil aviation statistical reviews. ntsb.gov
- NTSB. Midair Collision over the Potomac River, PSA Airlines Flight 5342. Investigation DCA25MA108, 2025-2026. ntsb.gov
- ICAO. Safety Report, 2025 Edition.icao.int
Methodology Note
Global figures come from the IATA Annual Safety Report, which counts on-board fatalities in commercial air transport and states accident rates per million flights; the 2025 edition was published on 9 March 2026. IATA revised its 2024 all-accident rate from 1.13 to 1.42 per million flights between the 2024 and 2025 reports after updating its flight counts and accident classification, so this page uses the later, restated figures. Other trackers such as the Aviation Safety Network use a broader definition of civil aircraft and report somewhat higher annual airline death tolls; the difference is scope, not contradiction. Per-boarding risk is from peer-reviewed MIT research covering 2018 to 2022. US figures are NTSB civil aviation data, with 2024 marked preliminary because the NTSB typically finalises causes about two years after an accident. All rates are per flight or per boarding unless stated, and small annual counts mean single accidents can move yearly totals sharply.
Author:
Joanna Teljeur
Job/Position: Senior Editor & Content Lead
Joanna Teljeur is a senior editor and writer with 15+ years of experience in editorial leadership, journalism, and content development, specialising in consumer rights, aviation law, and public-interest reporting. Her work focuses on transforming complex regulatory and legal topics into clear, accurate, and accessible content for international audiences.
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