If you are one of those frequent travelers who is concerned about air travel safety and risks, we have compiled a list of the 11 airlines with the worst safety records in the developed world, just for you. Safety is naturally considered to be a top priority for all airline operators in the world, due to the fact that fatalities are almost unavoidable in the event of accidents. All aviation regulatory bodies around the world try to impose stringent regulations for operating airlines and ensuring aircraft are thoroughly checked before each flight, thereby ensuring passenger safety. As a result, air travel has become the safest form of transportation in the world in terms of deaths per miles traveled, being safer even than trains.
The Aviation Safety Network (ASN) maintains a database which has descriptions of all air accidents and incidents around the world since 1919. According to this database, 2016 was the second-safest year in terms of air accident fatalities. There were just 19 fatal accidents last year, which claimed the lives of 325 people. That’s an almost mind-bogglingly low number when you consider that auto accidents claim the lives of as many as 1.2-1.3 million people annually, or about 0.02% of the global population each year. Only 2013 had a lower number of air fatalities and is considered to have been the safest year in aviation history.
Despite all the encouraging statistics, accidents happen and lives are lost every year. There are a lot of potential reasons behind aviation incidents, including terror activities (hijackings, bombings, sabotage, etc), airframe-related issues, engine-related issues, pilot errors, etc. There are some factors which cannot be controlled by airlines, especially terror activities. But other factors are largely in control of the airline operators and there are many operators around the world who are considered to be among the safest airlines to fly thanks to their tenacious safety checks which greatly limit the number of incidents that could happen due to controllable factors.
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In this article we intend to list the 11 airlines with the worst safety records in the developed world. So how can we classify safety records? From the passenger’s point of view, any airline which can get them safely to their destination, without incident, would be considered safe, while any incident/accident, even ones that don’t result in harm to any passengers, would be considered an unsafe event that was probably caused due to a lack of oversight.
Every aviation incident/accident (fatal/non-fatal) gets recorded in the Aviation Safety Network’s database, but given that some airlines have been in operation for far longer than others, we can’t simply find those with the most incidents and declare them the most unsafe, or the oldest airlines would unfairly dominate the list. So in order to simplify the search, all incidents/accidents post-2000 have been collected and the airlines are ranked based on the number of fatalities associated with these accidents. The airlines with the greatest number of fatalities in since 2000 can be considered to be the airlines with the worst safety records. For further related reading, check out the list of the 10 most unsafe dangerous airlines in America.
Now then, as the methodology is established, let’s jump into the list of the 11 airlines with the worst safety records in the developed world, beginning on the next page.
