The chance of a fatal airplane accident is 1 in 13.7 million flights

Although there are cases in which all crew and passengers on board are killed in major aviation accidents, aircraft are becoming safer every year. According to Professor Arnold Barnett, a flight safety and operations specialist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the probability of dying in an aviation accident worldwide between 2018 and 2022 is '1 in 13.7 million flights.'

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Moore's Law, which was first proposed by Intel co-founder Gordon Moore, states that the density of integrated circuits will double every 18 months. In recent years, this rate has slowed to about three years, but it is still continuing.

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Professor Barnett has proposed what could be called an 'aviation version of Moore's Law,' saying that 'aircraft are becoming twice as safe every decade.'

There are various indicators of aviation safety, such as 'fatalities per billion passenger miles (1.6 billion km)' or 'fatal accidents per 100,000 flight hours,' but Professor Barnett said, 'I believe the number of fatalities based on the number of flights is the most 'explainable' and easiest to understand statistic.'

According to Professor Barnett, the number of airline fatalities based on the number of passengers boarding passenger aircraft has changed as follows: 'Boarding' does not refer to whether or not the passenger actually boarded the aircraft, but rather to the point at which the ticket was issued, and includes the number of fatal accidents at the airport.

1968-1977: 1 in 350,000
1978-1987: 1 in 750,000
1988-1997: 1 in 1.3 million
1998-2007: 1 in 2.7 million
2007-2017: 1 in 7.9 million
2018-2022: 1 in 13.7 million.

Professor Barnett says these figures mean that air travel is roughly doubling in safety every decade.

Since safety is not the same everywhere in the world, Professor Barnett divides the world into three groups.

First group: Japan, the United States, EU countries, other European countries including the UK, Montenegro, Norway, Switzerland, Australia, Canada, China, and Israel.
Group 2: South Korea, Hong Kong, Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, India, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait, Jordan, Turkey, South Africa, Bosnia, Brazil, Chile
Group 3: Other countries

In countries in groups 1 and 2, there were 153 passenger fatalities between 2018 and 2022, the most notable of which was the crash of China Eastern Airlines Flight 5735 in 2022, which killed 123 passengers. Another 30 deaths were due to six aviation accidents.

On the other hand, the number of fatalities in aviation accidents in the third group was 36.5 times higher than in the first group.

'The third group is making great strides in improvement, but they are still lagging behind,' Professor Barnett said.