Airplane Accidents

When compared to other means of transportation, commercial air travel is very, very safe.  In fact, the vast majority of aviation accidents and deaths occur in smaller craft, general aviation.  However, as evidenced by the Boeing 737 Max crashes in recent years, when things do go wrong on an airline aircraft, the results are catastrophic.

We examined data from the National Transportation Safety Board to highlight how often aviation accidents occur and what type of aircraft are typically involved.

Commercial Airlines

As previously mentioned, the Boeing 737 Max crashes and resulting criminal and civil cases against Boeing highlight just how important commercial aircraft safety is.   While not represented in the NTSB data, two Boeing 737 Max aircraft crashed within a span of six months in October 2018 and March 2019, killing all 346 passengers and crew on board.  Yet, because of safety regulations, crashes like these have become exceedingly rare – especially in the United States.  You’d have to go all the back to 2006 to find the last time that the NTSB investigated more than one fatal airline crash in a single year and there were eight years in a row without a single fatal crash from 2010 through 2017.

Commuter Airlines

In 1997, the FAA began requiring that scheduled commuter airlines – those with between 10 and 30 seats – operate under stricter regulations.  Prior to that, commuter airlines had crash rates that were far higher than those of major air carriers.  The results? After spiking the year following the new regulations, the crash rate among commuter airlines dropped – and has continued to drop – considerably.  Additionally, many commuter airliners phased out the smallest aircraft and replaced them with larger aircraft given that they were subject to the same regulations.  As you can see, this lower crash rate trend has continued through 2018.

Air Taxis

Air taxis are defined as small aircraft that make short trips on demand.  In the United States, air taxis are subject to Part 135 of the Federal Aviation Regulations (FAR) which are much less stringent than those of Part 121 – those that larger commercial aircraft must adhere to.  Perhaps unsurprisingly, there are significantly more fatal crashes involving air taxis than commercial airlines in the United States.

General Aviation

General aviation includes a wide range of aviation activities including pilot training, movement of heavy loads, site seeing, and most personal and corporate aviation.  Essentially, it encompasses all aviation outside of the military and commercial airlines.  Given the broad scope and less stringent safety standards, general aviation accidents make up the vast majority of aviation crashes and fatalities.