Flying on a plane is safer now than ever before, study finds

There’s a one in 13.7 million chance that a passenger anywhere in the world will die onboard an aircraft, according to a new study.

Researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the US analysed global passenger and fatality data between 2018 and 2022 and found deaths on planes dropped by an average of 7 per cent year over year. 

Those results follow a pattern of “continuous improvement” that started in 1968 when the death rate fell an average of 7.5 per cent per year even as more flights took off and landed. 

It comes as US aircraft manufacturer Boeing faces a series of technical issues that forced the company to ground the test flights of their 777-9 model. The Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) also reportedly has launched inspections into the 787 Dreamliner due to faulty pilot seat movements.

The incident rate depends on what countries people are flying to and from, with researchers dividing countries into three tiers for low, medium and high risk based on air safety record. 

The lowest risk is the Tier 1 group which includes the European Union, Australia, Canada, China, Israel, Japan, Montenegro, New Zealand, Norway, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

Some examples of countries in the Tier 2 group include Bahrain, Bosnia, Brazil, Brunei, Chile, Hong Kong, India, Jordan, Kuwait, Malaysia, Mexico, Philippines, Qatar, Singapore, South Africa, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates. 

The rest of the world’s countries are in Tier 3 or the high-risk group. 

For the first two tiers, the death risk falls to one per 80 million passenger boardings, the study found. These countries account for more than half of the world’s 8 billion people. 

“At that rate, a passenger could on average choose one flight at random every day for 220,000 years before succumbing to a fatal accident,” the report continued. 

The fatality risk is around 36 per cent higher for tier 3 countries, the study found, but fatalities are still falling.

“While [these nations] continue to get better over time, their passenger death risk remains many times as high as the risk elsewhere,” the study says. 

The study also didn’t include