According to Flightglobal, in 2013 there was one fatal accident per 1.9 million flights.

An industry stat called revenue passenger kilometers measures the number of paying airline passengers and how far they fly.

1,021 aviation deaths were registered in 2014 prior to the disappearance of AirAsia Flight QZ8501 “But there's always work to do in safety. Last year, the rate was 0.24 out of 1 million departures. In Buffalo, New York, 50 died in another regional plane crash, Colgan Air Flight 3407, in 2009. In the 1940s there are so few RPKs that they barely show up on the chart. We can always improve.”Experts attribute the impressive recent safety record to improved technology, better communication and smarter procedures and management systems. Indonesia AirAsia: 162 deaths from one plane crash (2014, Borneo) Air India: 158 deaths from one plane crash (2010, India) Pakistan International Airlines: 154 deaths from two plane crashes (most recent: 2020, Pakistan) Airblue: 152 deaths from one plane crash (2010, Pakistan) Germanwings: 150 deaths from one plane crash (2015, France) There have been other tragic accidents too. More recently, 49 died in 2006 in the takeoff crash of a regional jet: Comair Flight 5191 in Lexington, Kentucky.

There were 1,845 in 1996, for example, including 349 in the world's deadliest ever mid-air collision. The world has been enjoying the safest-ever overall period in aviation history, according to the aviation safety number crunchers. Different circumstances surround the crashes, but when more than 700 airline passengers and flight crew lose their lives in the span of 138 days, some travelers might be concerned about the global aviation safety net.They may wonder if, statistically, the skies are getting more dangerous. That means less than one accident for every 1 million flights. According to the Aviation Safety Network, not since 1998 have more people perished in plane crashes.

Several years in the Nineties saw even more fatalities. The Russian crash of Aeroflot Flight 217 killed 174 people, and 155 were killed in the Spanish crash of a Convair 990 Coronado. Furthermore, if 2014 is judged in terms of the total number of fatal accidents, it was the actually the safest year on record. Furthermore, if 2014 is judged in terms of the total number of fatal accidents, it was the actually the safest year on record. “It's a perfectly safe system. They may ask themselves whether 2014 is trending toward one of the deadliest years in aviation history. Experts say no, don't be nervous. This year's high-profile disasters have put the number of fatalities for 2014 at above 700 already – indicating that this is a particularly bad year for air crashes. You also have to factor in the overall amount of aviation traffic. Is that the best we can expect from the global aviation safety net?
Just look carefully at the big picture.

"Based on this metric, airline operations are now almost three times safer than they were 20 years ago," it suggests. As shown in the chart above, the numbers of yearly aviation deaths and major plane crashes worldwide have been dropping for decades.
In 2014, 844 fatalities were recorded, but in the following year there were just 471 and there were even fewer in 2016. We rely on advertising to help fund our award-winning journalism.We urge you to turn off your ad blocker for The Telegraph website so that you can continue to access our quality content in the future. According to the Bureau of Aircraft Accidents Archives (BAAA), there were 111 plane crashes worldwide in 2014. In 1972, the worst year on record, there were 55 crashes. Wednesday's crash of TransAsia Airways Flight 222 killed 48 in Taiwan, and on Thursday, Air Algerie Flight 5017 crashed in Mali, leaving at least 116 dead. The latest offers and discount codes from popular brands on Telegraph Voucher Codes There have been 761 deaths in 12 commercial aviation accidents in 2014, according to the With the exception of the 9/11 attacks, it's hard to know whether the loss of three airliners in seven days is unprecedented, said Rudy Quevedo, global program director of Washington's Flight Safety Foundation. The result is called the aviation accident rate. In August, 39 died when a Sepahan Airlines plane crashed near Tehran. The numbers differ quite significantly from year to year because it only takes one major accident to have a massive impact on the figures. “That number proves that the chances of being in a fatal aircraft accident are extremely rare,” Quevedo said. As shown in the chart above, the numbers of yearly aviation deaths and major plane crashes worldwide have been dropping for decades. That might seem like a lot, but it's actually the least crashes per year since 1927. As the chart above shows, it was common for worldwide aviation accidents to top 1,000 deaths a year.The worst crash year on record — 1972 — also had the most deaths: 2,429.The deadliest aviation accident in history didn't even occur in any of the top 10 years. Fliers should take solace from the fact that the last decade has been the safest in aviation history, with 7,490 deaths, while 2013 was just about the safest year on record with only 265 deaths. The technology has “saved more lives than we'll ever know,” Quevedo said.It's difficult to factor in disasters like Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, Quevedo said, because so little is known about the safety-related decisions surrounding it, and obviously, commercial aircraft are not designed to fend off missile attacks.Overall, the global safety system “is quite stable,” Quevedo said, and a string of three crashes within a week doesn't indicate otherwise.“The glory of the air transport industry,” Charlton said, “is that when something goes wrong, we work incredibly hard to work out what went wrong and make sure it doesn't happen again.” Even worse were the Seventies.