IATA releases 2025 Annual Safety Report on aircraft accidents

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) released its 2025 Annual Safety Report on Monday to demonstrate the year's safety performance.The report states that 2025 had all-accident rate of 1.32 per million flights or one accident per 759,646 flights. This is an improvement compared to 2024's 1.42 per million flights but is still higher than the 2021-2025 five-year average of 1.27 per million flights. In total, there were 51 accidents among the 38.7 million flights. It is three fewer than the amount that occurred in 2024, but both are higher than the five-year average of 44 accidents per year. "Flying is the safest form of long-distance travel," said IATA Director General Willie Walsh. "Accidents are extremely rare and each one reminds us to be even more focused on continuous improvement through global standards and collaboration guided by safety data. The result of that effort is clear in how the five-year rolling average rate for fatal accidents has improved. A decade ago, the rate stood at one fatal accident for every 3.5 million flights (2012-2016). Today, it is one fatal accident for every 5.6 million flights (2021-2025). Flying is so safe that even one accident among the nearly 40 million flights operated annually moves the global data. Every accident is, of course, one too many. The goal for aviation remains zero accidents and zero fatalities." Of the accidents, 8 resulted in someone's death, with 394 reported on-board deaths recorded. 4 of those accidents were jet aircraft and 4 were turboprop. 2024 had 5 jet accidents and 2 turboprop accidents that resulted in 244 deaths. The five-year average is 6 deadly accidents with 198 deaths. The fatal risk increased to 0.17 per million flights. IATA states this was driven by the Air India 171 crash with 241 deaths and the PSA Airlines flight 5342 midair collision with 64 deaths, accounting for over 77% of all loss of life on board aircraft in 2025. The most common accidents in 2025 were tail strikes, landing gear events, runway excursions, and ground damage. 16% of accidents in 2025 were attributed to airport facilities. IATA claims this reinforces the need to fully respect global standards for runway safety areas, frangible installations within safety zones, and the effective mitigation of hazards. RELATED STORIES: The Safest Seats On A Plane To Survive A Deadly Accident IATA renews CFM contract to support MRO service market competition Venezuelan airspace closed to U.S. civil flights due to increased military activity "Airport infrastructure and runway environments play a critical role in accident outcomes," said Walsh. "In several events, rigid obstacles near runways increased accident severity, likely turning otherwise survivable occurrences into fatal ones. All airports and regulators should continuously review runway safety areas and the structures near runways for compliance with global safety standards." IATA warns that conflict zones like the ones caused by the U.S.-Israel-Iran war can cause operational complexity as military activity occurs in or near flight corridors. States are responsible for restricting or closing airspace and effictively communicating NOTAMs and risk advisories. IATA states it is essential that the process of closing and re-opening airspace focuses on the safety of civil aircraft and is not politicized. IATA further reports that its analysis of investigations conducted between 2019 and 2023 shows only 63% of accident reports were completed in line with state obligations under the Chicago Convention. Investigations routinely take more than one year to finalize, so a five-year dataset ending in 2023 provides an accurate view of global performance. Accident reports that aren't completed withhold insights that can be used to improve safety procedures. "Accident investigation helps us improve safety, but many reports are not published in a timely, complete, or accessible way," said Walsh. "Some are not made public while others lack clear recommendations. Annex 13 of the Chicago Convention is clear about state obligations. While compliance with this obligation is improving, anything less than 100% shortchanges everyone on opportunities to improve. Where accident investigation capacity is the challenge, coordinated global support to strengthen investigation capabilities is needed."