The commercial aviation industry faced four plane crashes in a tumultuous week, making it one of the deadliest years since 2018. The most shocking mid-air plane disaster happened on Sunday when a Jeju Air 737-800 jet crashed at Muan International Airport in South Korea.
- December 25: Azerbaijan Airlines plane crash
- December 28: KLM Airlines plane glides off runway in Norway
- December 28: PAL Airlines Dash 8-400 lights up in Canada
- December 29: South Korea’s worst-ever plane crash killed 179 people
In August, Voepass Flight 2283 crashed near Sao Paulo, killing all 62 people on board.
In July, 18 people were killed in a fatal takeoff accident involving a Saurya Airlines jet in Nepal.
In the midst of the latest mid-air crashes and several other accidents, the death toll of passengers on commercial flights has risen to 318 this year, bloomberg reports, citing Cirium data.
It marks the highest death toll since 2018, when 500 people died – a year defined by the first of two fatal Boeing 737 Maxi crashes.
The data shows that the number of people killed in a passenger plane has declined over the past 15 years. However, it only takes a few mid-air accidents to abruptly make a statistically safe year one of the deadliest.
