Air traffic decreased by 42 percent during the corona year 2020, but despite a large proportion of aircraft remaining for extended periods, the number of fatalities in commercial aviation accidents increased globally, reports Reuters.
In 2020, 40 accidents occurred with large commercial passenger aircraft, of which five were fatal, according to recent statistics from the Dutch flight consulting company To70.
A total of 299 people died.
The year before, there were almost twice as many accidents - 86.
Eight of them were fatal, resulting in 257 deaths.
17 people resident in Sweden died
The deadliest plane crash of the corona year occurred on January 8, when the Ukrainian passenger plane PS752 was shot down by an Iranian air defense robot outside the Iranian capital Tehran.
All 176 on board died in the crash, among them 17 people resident in Sweden.
The second deadliest accident took place on May 22 when a Pakistani passenger plane crashed in Karachi in southern Pakistan.
98 people on board lost their lives in the accident.
In 2020, there were 0.27 fatal accidents per one million flights with commercial passenger planes - or one fatal crash per 3.7 million flights.
Drastic reduction
The number of fatalities in air traffic has decreased drastically over the past 20 years.
As recently as 2005, 1,015 passengers died in commercial flights.
2017 was the safest year for air traffic, when only 13 people died.