Flying has long been a source of anxiety for many, but a new study reveals that commercial air travel is safer than ever before. According to research from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the risk of death in air travel has significantly decreased over time, with the fatality rate halving every decade.
The study, published in the Journal of Air Transport Management, found that the global fatality rate fell to 1 per every 13.7 million passenger boardings between 2018 and 2022. This is a marked improvement from the previous period of 2008-2017, which saw 1 fatality per 7.9 million boardings. The comparison is even more striking when looking back to the early days of commercial aviation: in the period from 1968-1977, the fatality rate was 1 per 350,000 boardings.
“Aviation safety continues to get better,” said MIT professor Arnold Barnett, co-author of the study. Barnett noted that the chance of dying in a plane crash has been decreasing by a factor of two every decade, likening the trend to “Moore’s Law,” which predicts the doubling of computing power every 18 months.
The study traces this improvement over several decades. From 1978-1987, the risk of dying was 1 per 750,000 boardings; from 1988-1997, it dropped to 1 per 1.3 million; and from 1998-2007, it further decreased to 1 per 2.7 million.
The last major commercial airline disaster in the United States occurred in 2009, when Colgan Air Flight 3407 crashed, resulting in the loss of 50 lives.
Despite the positive trend, Barnett warned that continued progress in aviation safety is not guaranteed. Recent near-collisions on U.S. runways and issues with aircraft, such as the door-plug incident on an Alaskan Airlines flight in January 2024, highlight ongoing challenges.
The study also emphasized the disparity in air safety across different regions. Countries were divided into three tiers based on their safety records. The top tier includes nations such as the United States, European Union countries, Australia, Canada, China, Israel, Japan, and New Zealand. The second tier consists of countries like Brazil, India, South Korea, and the United Arab Emirates. The remaining countries, with higher risks, fall into the third tier. However, the study noted that even in these higher-risk countries, air travel fatalities per boarding were halved during the 2018-2022 period, reflecting overall global improvements in aviation safety.
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