The number of commercial airline fatalities and accidents were well below the average for the last five years, according to a report.
That number, however, excludes both the Germanwings 9525 and the Metrojet 9268 crashes as they were both regarded as “deliberate acts of unlawful interference,” said the International Air Transport Association in a statement released on Monday. Pilot suicide and terrorism are respectively and widely blamed for both crashes.
Instead, the organization—which represents 260 airlines comprising 83% of worldwide air traffic—said last year’s global jet accident rate, measured in hull losses per 1 million flights, was the equivalent of one major accident for every 3.1 million flights. That was a 30% improvement over the previous five-year rate.
There were also four accidents resulting in 136 passenger fatalities in 2015, all of which involved turboprop aircraft. In comparison, the previous five-year period of 2010 to 2014 had an average of 17.6 fatal accidents and 504 fatalities per year.
“In terms of the number of fatal accidents, it was an extraordinarily safe year. And the long-term trend data show us that flying is getting even safer,” said Tony Tyler, IATA’s director general and CEO, in the statement.
This announcement comes after IATA cut its long-term forecasts for passenger traffic growth last November, citing lowering demand from China and “negative developments in the global economy.”
