(NewsNation) — Plane crashes, large or small, make headlines whenever they happen and can rattle the nerves of travelers getting ready to fly.
But how common are plane crashes?
The short answer is extremely rare, with a Massachusetts Institute of Technology study from 2024 putting the risk at 1 per every 13.7 million passenger boardings globally between 2018 and 2022. In 2008-2017, there was 1 fatality for every 7.9 million boardings.
For the average American, the risk of dying in a plane crash is about 1 in 11 million, compared to a risk of 1 in 5,000 when it comes to being in a fatal car accident.
Over the past decade, plane crashes have actually decreased, despite how it may feel when reading headlines of aviation accidents.
But the risk also varies based on where you are flying and what kind of plane you’re flying in.
Many countries, including the U.S., have extremely safe records when it comes to air travel, as do many other countries. That remains true even as alarm bells have been raised about aging air traffic control systems.
“Air travel is safe,” Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy told NewsNation. “We have a number of redundancies in place, but we have seen an aging system.”
But the European Union maintains a list of countries that are banned or restricted from operating in the region due to poor safety records.
When it comes to the type of plane, commercial aircraft crashes are the rarest.
The FAA handles more than 16 million flights each year, with more than 25 million flight hours. The agency reports an average of 45,000 flights each day, with 5,400 flights in the air during peak hours.
In 2022, the most recent year for which there is data available, the Bureau of Transportation Statistics reported a fatality rate of 1.50 per 100,000 flight hours, compared to 2.10 per 100,000 flight hours in 2012, ten years prior.
Small, privately-owned planes have a higher risk of crashing, though it’s difficult to pinpoint the exact rate due to fewer government regulations and reporting. Still, the rate of crashes for those planes has also been decreasing since the 1980s.
The bottom line is that air travel remains very safe.
“I think we just really need to reiterate to the public that flying is among the safest forms of transportation in the world,” said Clint Henderson, managing editor at The Points Guy.