The worldwide aviation accident rate for scheduled commercial operations declined 9.8 percent in 2021 from the previous year, from 2.14 per million departures to 1.93 per million, and associated fatalities decreased by 66 percent, the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) says.
In its 2022 Safety Report, issued Aug. 18, ICAO said passenger traffic increased in 2021, with 2.3 billion passengers worldwide, about half of the 4.5 billion recorded in 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic, but up from the 1.8 billion recorded in 2020, which represented a 60 percent decline from the previous year.
The number of scheduled commercial flight departures in 2021 was 24.92 million, up 11 percent from the 22.5 million recorded in 2020 but well below the 38.09 million in 2019.
Forty-eight accidents involving scheduled commercial flights were reported in both 2021 and 2020; in each year, four …
