Commercial jets were involved in 12 major accidents worldwide from Jan. 1 through Nov. 12, 2018 — three times as many as were recorded in all of 2017, according to an analysis by Flight Safety Foundation Fellow Jim Burin (Table 1).
A major accident is defined as one in which any of three conditions is met: The airplane was destroyed or the cost of repairs is greater than 50 percent of the cost of the aircraft, or there were multiple fatalities, or there was one fatality and the airplane was substantially damaged.
The 374 fatalities associated with 2018’s five fatal accidents far outstripped the four fatalities in 2017’s only fatal crash, said Burin, who presented his data during the Foundation’s 71st annual International Air Safety Summit, held in November in Seattle.
