More than two dozen bodies were recovered from the scene of a crash Wednesday night between an American Airlines jet carrying 64 people and a military Black Hawk helicopter carrying three soldiers at Reagan Washington National Airport.
Both aircraft were sent into the icy Potomac River near Washington, D.C. in what officials say is likely to be the worst U.S. aviation disaster in almost a quarter century.
Yet being in such a plane crash is relatively rare, researchers who analyzed the data found.
A Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) study from 2024 found that the risk of a fatality from commercial air travel is low — 1 per every 13.7 million passenger boardings globally between 2018 and 2022. In 2008-2017, there was 1 fatality for every 7.9 million boardings.
MIT also noted that despite these there “are no guarantees of continual improvement,” pointing to near-collisions in the U.S. that had recently gained headlines.
“Airline safety is always an ongoing task,” a press release from MIT said.
Clint Henderson, managing editor at The Points Guy, said on NewsNation’s “Morning in America” that in the aftermath of the tragedy, it is important to note incidents like this are “very unusual.”
“I think we just really need to reiterate to the public that flying is among the safest forms of transportation in the world,” he said.
National Transportation Safety Board records show that before Wednesday’s collision, the last time a U.S. airline crashed was on Feb. 12, 2009, in New York. About 50 people died in that crash.
Our World in Data’s Max Roser wrote last December that, per U.S. Bureau of Transportation Statistics, U.S. airline customers traveled 12.3 trillion passenger miles since 2009. As one light-year or the distance light travels over one year, is 5.9 million miles, the total distance that had been traveled without a crash from 2009 through 2024 is 2.3 light years, Roser wrote.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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