Flying becomes safer: deaths in air traffic have dropped greatly!

In 2022, the Federal Association of German Air Traffic Management (BDL) registered a total of 334 deaths worldwide due to accidents in civil air traffic. These numbers include both passengers and crew members and seven other people affected on the ground. The statistics show that the security situation in air traffic has improved in the long term, but after a low in 2017, again recorded an increase in the victims, while the figures are declining overall.

Although the number of fatalities in air traffic in 2023 with only 80 cases reached the second lowest number since 1970, the development has remained remarkable in the past few years. Flying was around 53 times safer in 2022 than in the 1970s. The data recorded relate to aircraft accidents with machines that have a capacity of at least 14 seats, while accidents with smaller machines and military aircraft do not flow into these statistics.

serious accidents of the past few years

The greatest misfortune of 2022 occurred on December 29, 2024, when a Boeing 737-800 of the Jeju Air crashed in South Korea, which led to the death of 179 inmates. The survivors were two crew members, while the investigation into the causes of the accident are still in progress. The worst incident in 2023 was the crash of an ATR72 in Nepal, where 72 people died.

The forecasts of the UN Aviation Organization Icao show that almost 4.7 billion passengers were promoted worldwide in 2022. This number corresponds to more than ten times the average passenger numbers of the 1970s when around 440 million passengers flew annually. During this period, more than 2,000 people lost their lives in plane plumbers in individual years.

The investigation into the number of fatalities in air traffic, which also includes 2010 to 2023, refers to data from the IATA and was last referred to Statista updated.

For detailed information on the deaths in civil air traffic and for general security development in aviation, see also the report on Kreiszeitung Wesermarsch .