Flying has never been safer, says new data

July 30, 2016

Those who are afraid of flying can take this to heart next time they board a plane: this year was the safest ever to fly.

New data assembled by the Aviation Safety Network shows that flying is the safest it has been since the dawn of the jet age in the 1960s.

There have been 22 fatal plane crashes worldwide this year, including cargo and passenger flights.

That is down from 28 crashes in 2011, said the Wall Street Journal.

This year's crashes are also dramatically lower than the 10-year average of 34 crashes per year.

Slate said that of those 22 crashes this year, 10 were of passenger aircraft.

Three of those aircraft were built in the West, while the other seven were built in Russia.

Ironically, the data was tallied just days before the crash of a Russian jet just outside Moscow that killed five people.

Bloomberg reported that North Asian and North American airlines had the best safety records while African carriers had the worst.

African airlines have made efforts to improve their pilot training and implement more safety checks by 2015.

Last June, a crash in Nigeria killed 153 people onboard and 10 people on the ground.

Of the four deadliest crashes of the year, two were in Africa, said Bloomberg.