Plane crash deaths per passenger: World, 1973–2019
Draw it before you lookCould you sketch this curve from memory? Draw it, then see how close you were.Plane crash deaths per passenger in World: how has it changed since 1973?
Plane crash deaths per passenger (World) went from 5.65 in 1973 to 0.06 in 2019.
In 1973 about 5.7 people were killed for every million airline passengers. Better engines, radar, training and crash investigations made flying about 90 times safer. In 2019 the figure was about 0.06: roughly one death per 16 million passengers.
What are the key figures?
- First year
- 5.65 in 1973
- Latest year
- 0.06 in 2019
- Highest
- 5.65 in 1973
- Lowest
- 0.01 in 2017
- Change
- 88× lower
What does this chart measure?
Plane crash deaths per passenger (deaths per million passengers). People killed in airliner crashes and hijackings for every million airline passengers in the world. One value per year.
What are the exact numbers?
| Year | deaths per million passengers |
|---|---|
| 1973 | 5.65 |
| 1974 | 5.01 |
| 1975 | 2.67 |
| 1976 | 3.64 |
| 1977 | 3.34 |
| 1978 | 2.14 |
| 1979 | 2.7 |
| 1980 | 2.07 |
| 1981 | 1.34 |
| 1982 | 1.74 |
| 1983 | 1.96 |
| 1984 | 0.87 |
| 1985 | 3.09 |
| 1986 | 1.06 |
| 1987 | 1.45 |
| 1988 | 1.79 |
| 1989 | 1.8 |
| 1990 | 0.71 |
| 1991 | 1.01 |
| 1992 | 1.28 |
| 1993 | 1.06 |
| 1994 | 1.16 |
| 1995 | 0.91 |
| 1996 | 1.38 |
| 1997 | 0.85 |
| 1998 | 0.91 |
| 1999 | 0.44 |
| 2000 | 0.68 |
| 2001 | 0.68 |
| 2002 | 0.66 |
| 2003 | 0.4 |
| 2004 | 0.29 |
| 2005 | 0.54 |
| 2006 | 0.43 |
| 2007 | 0.35 |
| 2008 | 0.25 |
| 2009 | 0.32 |
| 2010 | 0.31 |
| 2011 | 0.18 |
| 2012 | 0.14 |
| 2013 | 0.08 |
| 2014 | 0.29 |
| 2015 | 0.15 |
| 2016 | 0.08 |
| 2017 | 0.01 |
| 2018 | 0.13 |
| 2019 | 0.06 |
Where does the data come from?
Global aviation fatalities per million passengers. Aviation Safety Network (2024); International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), via World Bank (2026). Data published by Our World in Data under CC BY 4.0.
Played in CurvGuessr puzzle #2, November 6, 2026. Past puzzles
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