2019 among safest years for aviation despite 737 Max crisis

The Aviation Safety Network has found there were 20 fatal airliner accidents, which caused 283 deaths, in 2019.

Although that makes last year the seventh safest for accidents and third best for fatalities, the number of accidents has increased to above the five-year average of 14.

This makes about one fatal accident per two million flights worldwide.

Out of the 20 crashes, 13 involved passenger flights and six were for cargo, and one was operated by an airline on the EU “blacklist”, down by two compared to 2018.

This is despite the Boeing 737 Max Ethiopian Airlines crash in March 2019, which killed 157 people.