Airlines have recorded some accidents in the year 2024, but statistics show that the risk of death or injury on a commercial flight is extremely low.
The most recent accident happened last Sunday (29) in South Korea, when a Boeing aircraft crashed at Muan International Airport, killing 179 people — the deadliest air disaster in the country since 1997.
In images broadcast by various media outlets around the world, the Jeju Air flight can be seen sliding on its belly, at high speed, hitting an embankment and exploding.
although experts have told CNN that the plane’s landing gear — specifically, the wheels used for takeoff and landing — appeared not to have been fully deployed before hitting the tarmac.
South Korean authorities are investigating the cause of the disaster with the help of United States detectives.
In a statement on
The accident happened after entering Russian airspace in Grozny, Chechnya.
It is not confirmed what was behind the incident, other than accidentally crashing the plane.
The Russian president, because the tragic incident occurred in Russian airspace” in a phone call with Aliyev last week, according to a Kremlin statement, but did not take responsibility.
And on Saturday night, . The flight, operated by partner PAL Airlines and carrying 73 passengers, “experienced an alleged landing gear problem” after arriving at Halifax Stanfield International Airport in Nova Scotia, although no injuries were reported, according to the airline.
These incidents capped off a year that was less than flattering for the airline industry, particularly for Boeing, which is facing .
In January, , leaving a huge hole in the side of the Boeing 737 Max fuselage.
No passengers died, but the incident followed two fatal 737 Max crashes in recent years — one in 2018 and another in 2019 — that triggered a 20-month grounding of the model worldwide.
What are the risks?
Accidents — fatal or not — aboard tens of millions of commercial flights flown each year are highly unlikely, according to the latest data from the International Air Transport Association (IATA), the trade association for the world’s airlines.
There were 30 such accidents recorded in 2023, the most recent year for which full-year accident data is available, amounting to a risk of one accident for every 1.26 million flights, IATA says. This is lower than the risk from the previous year, with one in every 770,000 flights reporting an accident.
“There is more risk driving to the airport than flying in an aircraft,” Anthony Brickhouse, professor of aviation safety at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in New Jersey, told CNN. “In some parts of the world, you are less safe on an escalator than flying in an aircraft,” he added.
“When accidents happen, they obviously get everyone’s attention, but I think it’s really important for everyone to take a step back and let investigators do their job,” he added.
An airline safety study published in August and co-authored by Arnold Barnett, a professor of statistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, revealed that between 2018 and 2022, the global risk of death from boarding was one in 13.7 million.
In other words, if a flight were chosen at random and boarded during that period, your chance of dying in a plane crash or in a terrorist act would be one in 14 million.
But a strong safety record in the past doesn’t guarantee the same in the future, and passengers may have new concerns given the recent spate of fatal accidents.
The loss of more than 200 lives in the last few days alone will push the number of fatalities caused by commercial aviation accidents well above the 72 recorded by IATA in 2023.
IATA Director General Willie Walsh said in the industry group’s most recent annual safety report, published in February, that 2023 safety performance “continued to demonstrate that flying is the safest mode of transport.”
However, he said that “we can never take safety for granted” and that “two high-profile accidents in the first month of 2024 show that even though flying is among the safest activities a person can do, there is always room for to improve”.
