Air India plane crash makes 2025 deadliest for air travel in years
Crash on track to become worst commercial airline disaster since Malaysian Airlines MH17 was shot down over Ukraine in 2014, killing 298
The crash of Air India Flight 171 has turned 2025 into one of the deadliest years in the past decade for civil aviation.
Globally, the number of civil aviation fatalities has reached more than 460 in 2025, according to Jan-Arwed Richter, founder of Jacdec, a German consulting firm that tracks aviation safety. The average over the past decade is 284 based on the firm’s methodology.
“This year still has more than six months to go, so this could be concerning if this rate of fatal accidents would go on,” Richter said.
Commercial aviation safety reached a high-water mark in 2023, when industry groups said there were no fatal crashes. Since then, a number of high-profile incidents have grabbed headlines.
In January, American Airlines Flight 5342 collided with an army helicopter near Washington, in one of the deadliest US civil aviation disasters in decades. Less than a month later, a Delta Air Lines jet flipped over while landing in Toronto, Canada.