In spite of Boeing taking roasting over the 737 MAX safety issues following a high-profile passenger jet crash in Ethiopia, 2019 was one of the safest years for air travel on record.
According to Dutch consulting firm To70 last year commercial aviation incidents fell by over 50 per cent. There were 86 accidents last year involving commercial passenger planes, eight of which were fatal. With 257 deaths recorded among passengers and airline staff, this equates to 0.18 flights per million recording a fatality.
From almost 31 million recorded flights that would result in one fatal incident in every 5.58 million takeoffs.
This makes it one of aviation's safest years with under half the incidents of 2018, which saw 160 incidents.
Reuters quoted To70 as saying the year was spent focusing on "future threats" such as drones in shared airspace. However it could not ignore the ongoing 737 MAX safety investigations, saying they are "a reminder that we need to retain our focus on the basics that make civil aviation so safe: well-designed and well-built aircraft flown by fully informed and well-trained crews."
