London
CNN
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Nervous airline passengers may likely recall 2024 as the year their gravest apprehensions regarding air travel safety were validated, as an array of extraordinary, and in several instances lethal, aviation occurrences garnered media attention.
Three distinct occurrences last week — involving South Korean, Canadian, and Azerbaijani airlines — have inflamed those fears during the bustling holiday travel season. However, data indicates that the likelihood of fatality or injury during a commercial flight remains exceedingly low.
The most recent event took place on Sunday in South Korea when a Boeing airliner made an emergency landing at Muan International Airport, resulting in the deaths of 179 individuals — the most catastrophic aviation tragedy in the nation since 1997. In footage aired by multiple South Korean news organizations, the Jeju Air flight can be observed skidding at high velocity on its fuselage, colliding with an embankment and igniting into a fireball.
The reason behind the crash remains uncertain; however, experts informed CNN that the airplane’s landing gear — particularly, the wheels meant for takeoff and landing — seemed not to have fully extended before making contact with the runway. South Korean officials are investigating the cause of the calamity alongside investigators from the United States.
In a statement made on Sunday via X, Boeing expressed its “deepest sympathies to the families that lost relatives” and indicated its readiness to assist Jeju Air.
The crash occurred after 38 individuals perished on Christmas Day when an Azerbaijan Airlines flight met with disaster upon entering Russian airspace in Grozny, Chechnya. Although the precise cause remains unverified, Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev has accused Russia of inadvertently downing the aircraft.
Russian President Vladimir Putin offered an “apology for the tragic incident occurring in Russian airspace” during a conversation with Aliyev last week, as per a statement from the Kremlin, yet he did not accept responsibility.
Furthermore, on Saturday night, an Air Canada Express flight experienced a non-fatal incident. The flight, which was operated by its partner PAL Airlines carrying 73 passengers, “faced a suspected landing gear malfunction” upon arriving at Halifax Stanfield International Airport in Nova Scotia, though the airline reported that no injuries occurred.
These occurrences concluded a year that has not been favorable for the airline sector, particularly for beleaguered aircraft manufacturer Boeing, which has encountered intensifying scrutiny regarding the quality of its aircraft.
In January, a panel detached from an Alaska Airlines flight, creating a large breach in the side of the Boeing 737 Max fuselage. While no travelers lost their lives, the occurrence followed two fatal crashes involving the 737 Max in recent years — one in 2018 and another in 2019 — which led to a 20-month grounding of the model globally.
Incidents — whether deadly or not — aboard the tens of millions of commercial flights taken annually are exceedingly unlikely according to the most recent statistics from the International Air Transport Association, the trade organization representing the world’s airlines.
There were 30 such incidents logged in 2023, the latest year for which comprehensive annual accident data is available, resulting in a risk of one incident for every 1.26 million flights, as stated by IATA. This figure is lower compared to the risk from the year before, where one accident was reported for every 770,000 flights.
“You’re at greater risk … driving to the airport than you are … flying on an airplane,” remarked Anthony Brickhouse, a professor specializing in aviation safety at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical.
University in New Jersey mentioned to CNN. “In certain regions of the globe, you are … less secure on an escalator than you are when flying in an aircraft.”
“When incidents occur, it obviously captures everyone’s notice, but I believe it is crucial for all to (take a) pause and allow the investigators to perform their duties,” he remarked.
A research on airline safety study released in August and co-authored by Arnold Barnett, a statistics professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, discovered that from 2018 to 2022, the global fatality risk per boarding was one in 13.7 million.
In simpler terms, if you selected a flight randomly and boarded during that interval, your likelihood of perishing in a plane crash or an act of terrorism was about one in 14 million.
Nevertheless, a solid safety history in the past does not ensure the same for the future, and travelers may develop new apprehensions considering the recent wave of deadly crashes. The loss of over 200 lives in the recent days alone is set to elevate the tally of casualties linked to commercial aviation disasters significantly above the 72 recorded by IATA in 2023.
IATA Director General Willie Walsh stated in the industry group’s latest annual safety report, which was released in February, that the safety performance in 2023 “continue(d) to illustrate that flying is the most secure means of transportation.”
However, he mentioned “we can never assume safety is guaranteed” and that “two significant accidents in the first month of 2024 demonstrate that, despite flying being one of the safest actions a person can undertake, there is always potential for enhancement.”