Fatal Accidents
The number of accidents in 2024 have increased compared to 2023.
The number of flights on commercial jet aircraft recovered and are similar to 2019 values. However, compared to 2023, a year with no fatal commercial jet accidents, there were four fatal accidents on revenue flights in 2024.
As the number of accidents and flights will vary each year, accident rates are more relevant than reviewing the number of accidents per year when analysing trends.
The rate of fatal accidents is steadily decreasing over time
There were far fewer flights in the 1960s, but a peak in the accident rates is shown due to the lower number of flights and the higher number of accidents recorded during this period.
The fatal accident rate increased in 2024 due to four fatal accidents..
However, safety statistics from a single year may not accurately reflect long term trends. Analysis of the fatal accident rate has shown a steady decrease over time despite the significant growth in commercial jet aviation traffic, especially in recent decades. Introduction of new technologies with the arrival of each aircraft generation, and continuous incremental enhancements, are a key enabler to reduce the fatal accident rate. More detailed information and analysis of the impact of these technologies are described in the “Generation of Jets, Accident Rates by Category & Generations” section.
Generation 4 aircraft have the lowest fatal accident rate
Advances in technology have helped to reduce accident rates for each generation
The continual reduction in accident rates has been achieved by an ongoing commitment of the commercial aviation industry to enable a safe aircraft to be safely operated in a safe air transport system.
A notable part of this success is due to effective regulation, a strong safety culture, and improvements in training. Technological advances are also a crucial enabler for enhancing the level of safety. In particular, technologies introduced in aircraft systems intentionally evolved with improving safety as their aim.
A comparison of fatal accident rates by generation of aircraft provides a clear illustration of the value of commercial aviation industry investments in technology to improve safety. Generation 4 aircraft have the lowest accident rate of all. In 2024, the generation 4 fatal accident rate was 0.04 accidents per million flight cycles. This was around 3 times lower than the rate recorded for generation 3 aircraft.
10 year moving average fatal accident rate (per million flights) per aircraft generation
No Data Found
*excludes ground fatal accidents
Evolution of the Fatal Accident Rate of Aircraft Generations and Air Traffic
The 10-year moving fatal average accident rate provides a clearer picture of an overall trend. A notable part of this success is due to effective regulation, a strong safety culture, and improvements in training. Technological advances are also a crucial enabler for enhancing the level of safety In particular, technologies introduced in aircraft systems intentionally evolved with improving safety as their aim.
In 2024, all aircraft generations had a combined rate of 0.09 fatal accidents per million flight cycles.
10-year moving average fatal accident rate of all aircraft generations (per million flights) and the evolution of the air traffic of each aircraft generation over the year
