Is Flying Safe? Air Crash Statistics Explained in Plain English

Yes. Commercial flying is one of the safest ways to travel. Over the five years from 2021 to 2025 there was one fatal accident for every 5.6 million flights worldwide, according to IATA, the airline industry association. Ten years earlier, from 2012 to 2016, the figure was one in every 3.5 million.

In the United States, airlines flew more than 9 million flights and 8.8 billion miles in 2024 without a single fatal accident, according to the NTSB. In the same year, 39,254 people died on the country’s roads.

Figures as of 31 October 2026. We update this page each year when IATA, ICAO and the NTSB publish new figures.

The short answer, with the numbers

Measure	Figure	Source
Commercial flights worldwide, 2025	38.7 million	IATA
Accidents, 2025	51 (one per 759,646 flights)	IATA
Fatal accidents, 2025	8	IATA
Deaths on board, 2025	394	IATA
Fatal accidents per flight, 2021–2025	1 in 5.6 million	IATA
US airline fatal accidents, 2024	0	NTSB
US road deaths, 2024	39,254	NHTSA

Accidents per million flights, by year

The two main sources of world figures are ICAO, the UN agency for civil aviation, and IATA. They count slightly differently, so their numbers do not match exactly. Use one source consistently when comparing years.

IATA (2025 Safety Report, March 2026). There were 51 accidents among 38.7 million flights in 2025, down from 54 in 2024. That is 1.32 accidents per million flights, better than 1.42 in 2024 but above the five-year average of 1.27. Eight accidents were fatal, against seven in 2024, and 394 people died on board, against 244.

IATA also gives a “fatality risk” figure: 0.17 in 2025, up from 0.06 in 2024, against a five-year average of 0.12. Fatality risk measures how exposed a passenger or crew member is to an accident with no survivors. It does not depend on the size of the aircraft.

ICAO (figures published July 2026). ICAO counted about 38 million flights carrying about 5 billion passengers in 2025. The number of accidents on scheduled commercial flights fell from 95 to 85, and the accident rate from 2.6 to 2.2 per million departures. Fatal accidents fell from 10 to 4, but deaths rose from 296 to 387.

Both sets of figures say the same thing in different ways. Accidents are rare and getting rarer. But the number of deaths jumps around from year to year, because one large accident changes the total.

Flying vs driving: per trip, per mile and per hour

Comparing flying and driving is harder than it looks, so here are the figures and the catches.

The raw numbers. In 2024, US airlines operating under the main airline rules, Part 121, had 34 accidents, none of them fatal. They flew 19.9 million hours, 8.8 billion miles and 9.3 million departures. The NHTSA counted 39,254 deaths on US roads in 2024, at a rate of 1.19 deaths for every 100 million vehicle miles. Americans drove 3,294 billion vehicle miles that year.

The catches.

Different miles. The NTSB counts aircraft miles: one airliner flying 1,000 miles is 1,000 miles, however many people are on board. Road statistics count vehicle miles. Neither is a passenger mile, which is the fairest unit, so per-mile comparisons drawn from these two tables are rough.
Per trip or per hour. A flight is usually longer and much faster than a car journey, so comparing per trip or per hour of travel gives different ratios from comparing per mile. Each unit answers a slightly different question.
Your own driving. Road deaths include all drivers, including those who are drunk, speeding or unbelted. Airline risk applies equally to everyone on board.
Small samples. In a year with no airline deaths, the airline rate is zero, which is not the same as “no risk”. Look at several years together.

Over the twenty years from 2005 to 2024, the NTSB’s tables show US airline deaths ranging from none at all, in ten of those years, to 52 in the worst year, 2009. US road deaths were 41,025 in 2023 and 39,254 in 2024. Whichever unit you choose, the airline comes out far ahead.

Commercial vs private flying

“Flying” covers very different things. Most deaths in US civil aviation are not on airliners.

In 2024 the NTSB recorded:

US airlines (Part 121): 34 accidents, 0 fatal, 0 deaths.
General aviation (private, business, training and other flying): 1,126 accidents, 182 fatal, 305 deaths.
Within that, personal flying alone: 712 accidents, 114 fatal, 199 deaths, or 1.31 fatal accidents per 100,000 flight hours.

General aviation has also improved: personal flying had 239 fatal accidents in 2005 against 114 in 2024. But it is a different world from scheduled airline service, with smaller aircraft, often a single pilot, and different rules. When a statistic says “plane crash”, check which kind of flying it means.

Why it got safer

Airline safety did not improve by luck. Almost every rule behind today’s figures was written after an accident, and many of them are covered on this site.

Weather. After Delta Air Lines Flight 191 flew into a microburst at Dallas/Fort Worth in 1985, airports got wind shear detection and pilots got warnings and escape training. See Wind Shear and Microbursts. Watch Delta Flight 191: The Microburst That Downed an L-1011 at DFW.
Ageing aircraft. After about 18 feet of the cabin roof tore away from Aloha Airlines Flight 243 in 1988, inspections of older aircraft changed. See Aloha 243 and the Aging Aircraft Rules.
Crew teamwork. Crew resource management training grew out of accidents such as Tenerife. See What Changed After Tenerife.
Cockpit alarms. Collision and terrain warnings. See TCAS and Terrain Warnings.
Security. Baggage matching and screening after bombings. See What Changed After Pan Am 103.

Behind all of these is a way of thinking: investigate every accident to its root, and fix the system rather than only blaming the last person involved. Our guide to the Swiss cheese model explains it.

Why a bad year can still happen

Low averages do not mean that nothing can go wrong. IATA’s fatality risk rose from 0.06 in 2024 to 0.17 in 2025. ICAO’s count of deaths rose in 2025 even though the number of fatal accidents fell from 10 to 4.

The United States shows the same thing. After two years without a fatal airline accident, an American Airlines regional jet operated by PSA Airlines collided with a US Army helicopter near Washington National Airport on 29 January 2025. All 64 people on the jet and the 3 soldiers on the helicopter died, according to the NTSB’s final report. That accident will appear in the NTSB’s 2025 tables when they are published.

A single accident like that can make a year’s figures look much worse. It does not change the long-term trend, which is measured over many years and many millions of flights.

How we keep this page current

The figures on this page come from published statistics, and each figure says which year and which source it uses. We review the page each year:

IATA publishes its annual safety report in the first quarter of the year.
ICAO publishes its safety figures in the middle of the year.
The NTSB updates its US civil aviation accident tables early in the year.
The NHTSA publishes its road traffic overview for the previous year.

When we update the page, we change the “figures as of” date at the top.

Questions people ask

Is flying safer than driving? Yes, by a wide margin for airline travel. US airlines flew 8.8 billion miles in 2024 with no fatal accidents, while 39,254 people died on US roads that year, according to the NTSB and NHTSA. Exact per-mile comparisons need care, because the two sets of figures measure distance differently.

How many plane crashes are there per year worldwide? IATA counted 51 accidents among 38.7 million commercial flights in 2025, of which 8 were fatal. ICAO, which counts scheduled commercial flights with different definitions, counted 85 accidents and 4 fatal accidents. Most accidents involve damage or injuries, not deaths.

How many people die in commercial plane crashes a year? IATA counted 394 deaths on board in fatal accidents in 2025, and 244 in 2024. ICAO counted 387 fatalities in 2025 and 296 in 2024. The number changes a lot from year to year because a single large accident can double it.

What are the odds of dying in a plane crash? IATA puts the long-run figure at one fatal accident for every 5.6 million flights (2021 to 2025). A fatal accident does not mean everyone on board died, so a passenger’s own risk on any one flight is lower still.

Watch in the library

Sources

IATA, “IATA Releases 2025 Safety Report”, 9 March 2026.
ICAO news releases of 23 July 2026 (2025 figures) and 11 August 2025 (2024 figures).
NTSB, US civil aviation accident statistics 2005–2024 (Tables 1, 5 and 26).
NHTSA, Overview of Motor Vehicle Traffic Crashes in 2024 (DOT HS 813 791), April 2026.
NTSB, Aviation Investigation Final Report DCA25MA108.