What Are the Chances of Being in a Plane Crash?

The chances of being involved in a serious accident on a commercial airline flight are extremely low. According to IATA’s 2025 aviation safety data, there were 51 reportable accidents among 38.7 million commercial flights worldwide — about one accident per 760,000 flights.

Only eight of those accidents were fatal, which works out to approximately one fatal accident per 4.8 million flights. These figures describe how frequently airline accidents occurred, however, and are different from the probability that an individual passenger will die in an aviation accident.

What Are the Chances of a Plane Crashing?

The latest global figures from the International Air Transport Association show how rare commercial airline accidents are.

According to the IATA 2025 Safety Report, the overall accident rate was 1.32 accidents per million flights.

That does not mean one commercial airplane out of every 760,000 crashes with fatalities. IATA’s accident category includes events that meet its reporting criteria but may not involve the destruction of an aircraft or passenger deaths.

Examples of accident types recorded in 2025 included runway excursions, landing gear events, tail strikes, and ground damage. Some aviation accidents are serious but survivable, while others may involve substantial aircraft damage without any fatalities.

For that reason, the approximately one-in-760,000 figure is best understood as the observed frequency of reportable airline accidents in 2025, not simply as the “odds of a plane crashing.”

Fatal accidents were much rarer. Eight occurred among 38.7 million flights, producing a rough frequency of one fatal accident for every 4.8 million commercial flights during that year.

What Are the Chances of Dying in a Plane Crash?

The risk to an individual passenger is different from the frequency of accidents per flight.

A 2024 study by researchers at MIT estimated that, worldwide, the risk of a passenger dying during commercial air travel was approximately 1 per 13.7 million passenger boardings during the 2018–2022 period.

The MIT aviation safety research also found that the risk had fallen substantially over previous decades. For comparison, the researchers estimated one fatality per 7.9 million passenger boardings during 2008–2017.

It is important not to combine the MIT number with the IATA accident rate as though they measure the same thing.

• IATA’s 2025 accident rate measures accidents relative to the number of commercial flights.
• The fatal accident frequency compares fatal accidents with the number of flights.
• The MIT estimate measures the risk of death for an individual passenger boarding a commercial flight over the 2018–2022 period.

The statistics also cover different years, so the one-in-13.7-million figure should not be presented as a specific passenger fatality probability for 2025.

Are Commercial Airplanes Safer Than Private Planes?

Commercial airline statistics should not be applied to every type of aircraft. Scheduled airlines operate under a different regulatory and operational environment from much of general aviation.

Commercial aviation includes scheduled passenger airlines using structured maintenance programs, professional flight crews, air traffic control systems, and extensive operating procedures.

General aviation includes many other types of flying, such as private recreational flights and flight training. Aircraft, pilot experience, operating environments, and flight purposes vary considerably within this category.

The difference is visible in U.S. safety data. According to the National Safety Council’s aviation statistics, scheduled major U.S. airlines recorded no onboard fatalities in 2024. General aviation, by contrast, recorded 300 onboard fatalities and a fatal accident rate of 0.721 per 100,000 flight hours.

These figures should not be combined into a single “airplane crash probability.” A passenger flying on a scheduled commercial jet is participating in a very different type of aviation from someone flying in a small privately operated aircraft.

Why Is Flying Considered So Safe?

Commercial airline safety depends on several layers of protection rather than a single technology.

• Aircraft inspections and maintenance are performed according to scheduled programs and regulatory requirements.
• Pilots undergo initial and recurring training and must demonstrate proficiency in normal and emergency procedures.
• Critical aircraft systems often include redundancy, allowing another system or component to take over after certain failures.
• Air traffic control manages aircraft separation and traffic flow.
• Accident investigations identify contributing factors that can lead to changes in aircraft design, training, procedures, and regulations.

Risk is not identical everywhere. Accident rates can vary by region, aircraft type, operator, airport infrastructure, weather, and operating conditions. Aviation accidents therefore remain possible even though their overall frequency in commercial service is very low.

Is Flying Safer Than Driving?

Commercial air travel is generally considered one of the safest forms of long-distance passenger transportation, but comparisons with driving need to use compatible measurements.

An aviation statistic expressed as accidents per flight cannot be directly compared with a road statistic expressed as deaths per trip, mile, hour, or year. A flight may cover thousands of miles, while most car trips are much shorter.

Meaningful comparisons therefore usually normalize exposure using measures such as passenger miles, passenger hours, or another common unit. This is why simple claims such as “you are exactly 100 times more likely to die in a car” can be misleading unless the calculation method, country, period, and type of travel are specified.

What current data does show clearly is that fatal accidents on scheduled commercial flights are exceptionally rare: in 2025, IATA recorded eight fatal accidents across nearly 39 million flights worldwide, while MIT’s longer-term research estimated a passenger fatality risk of about one in 13.7 million boardings for 2018–2022.