Ten fatal airliner accidents occurred in 2017, none of them involving passenger jets, according to data compiled by the Aviation Safety Network (ASN), an independent organization affiliated with Flight Safety Foundation.
Data released Monday show that the 10 fatal accidents resulted in the deaths of 44 passengers and crewmembers and 35 people on the ground.
“This makes 2017 the safest year ever, both by the number of fatal accidents as well as in terms of fatalities,” ASN said, noting that as of Dec. 31, a record period of 398 days had passed without a passenger jet accident. The most recent accident involving a passenger jet was the Nov. 26, 2016, crash of a LaMia Avro RJ85 near Medellín, Colombia, that killed 71 of the 77 passengers and crew.
Of the 10 fatal accidents in 2017, five involved turboprop-powered passenger airplanes, and five involved cargo flights. ASN calculated that, considering expected worldwide air traffic of 36.8 million flights, the fatal accident rate is about one accident per 7.36 million flights.
The low number of accidents is not surprising, ASN President Harro Ranter said, adding, “Since 1997, the average number of airliner accidents has shown a steady and persistent decline, for a great deal thanks to the continuing safety-driven efforts by international aviation organisations such as [the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), the International Air Transport Association], Flight Safety Foundation and the aviation industry.”
ASN’s’s list of the 10 fatal airliner crashes in 2017 is available here.
In response to the ASN release, Fang Liu, secretary general of ICAO, said, “ICAO is very encouraged that no major hull losses and very few fatalities were reported for 2017 flights. These results speak to the commitment and cooperation of the governments, operators, and professional men and women worldwide who have worked so hard together to achieve them.”