Air travel seems to have shaken its unlucky streak of crashings, missing aircraft and hijacked planes, with zero people killed in passenger jet crashes in 2017.
Experts referred to the last 12 months as the safest year for aviation thanks to zero passenger plane crashes, but cautioned that it may have just been a case of “good fortune”.
According to the Aviation Safety Network, there were 10 overall fatal accidents in aviation in 2017 (excluding smaller aircraft), which resulted in 79 deaths, down from 16 accidents and 303 deaths in 2016.
Image: Eva Darron/Unsplash
Among the fatal incidents was the Turkish Airlines Boeing 747-400F which crashed into a residential area while attempting to land in thick fog on 16 January 2017. While technically there were no passengers deaths, four crew members were killed along with 35 people on the ground.
There was also the West Wind Aviation TR 42-300, which crashed shortly after takeoff on 13 December resulting in the passing of one passenger.
Aviation Safety Network’s figures showed that over the last 20 years, death associated with air travel has declined from over 1,000 fatalities in 2005, and the accident rate is now sitting at one fatal passenger flight accident per 7.3 million flights.
So if there’s ever a time for “Mr. Play It Safe” from Alanis Morissette’s Ironic to “take that flight”, it’s now.
Meanwhile, 2017 was a pretty good year overall for air travel with reasonable airfares seeing travellers fork out as little as $292 fares to New Caledonia, $1,062 flights to Vancouver and more.
It was also the year aviation workers seemed to have had more fun in their roles through viral-making activities such as dancing on the tarmac, karaoke at the gate and performing Christmas ballads during announcements.
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