After the plane crash, the cause of frequent air accidents was estimated

On November 1, a Learjet 60 plane heading to the Bahamas from Austin, Texas, suddenly entered a peak and took off on a multilane highway. Within hours of the crash, which killed all nine people on board, social media was filled with horrifying footage showing the exact moment of the collision.

With these disturbing footage in mind, many have begun to wonder if flying is becoming more dangerous. If you’re planning a vacation, you’ll be relieved to hear that decades of data on plane crashes suggests the simple answer is no.

Jan-Arved Richter, founder and CEO of the German Aviation Safety Bureau (JACDEC), told the Daily Mail that we are now living in "the safest era of air travel in history.".

However, there is one important exception to this rule. While passenger airlines have become safer over the past 25 years, private jets, small aircraft and helicopters remain significantly more dangerous. While high-profile stories such as the recent Learjet crash or last year's Air India crash are rightly alarming, experts say long-term data paint a very encouraging picture.

Richter, whose company JACDEC collects safety data, told the Daily Mail: "Over the past 25 years, the average number of fatalities has dropped significantly compared to the 1990s or even the 2000s.".

He notes, however, that a more impressive statistic is the number of passengers carried per year: “At the beginning of the new millennium, the number of air travelers per year was 1.7 billion. A quarter of a century later, we count nearly five billion passengers worldwide, a 192 per cent increase.”.

At the same time, the number of fatal accidents fell from 1,155 in 2001 to just 499 in 2025 in all types of civil aviation, including fatalities both in the air and on the ground.

What makes this particularly remarkable is the fact that the improvements have been universal and global, the Daily Mail notes.

The introduction of new safety regulations in countries from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, India and Iran to places like Papua New Guinea has significantly improved air travel standards. “I can’t imagine any other industry that learns so well from mistakes, accidents and natural disasters as civil aviation.”.

However, while private charter jets are still statistically very safe, experts say they come with more risk. Both passenger airlines and charter aircraft have strict safety regulations, but private jets have slightly different rules and requirements.

Richter said it was extremely difficult to obtain accurate data on deaths on private charter flights because companies often kept their passengers private. However, he remains convinced that the death rate in private, or "irregular," aviation is higher than in commercial airlines.

The safety of passenger air travel is ensured precisely by how flights are performed. They fly in any weather, the crew works strictly on schedule, all systems are regularly checked, and the pilots are very well trained and experienced. Private charter aircraft, on the other hand, often face operational difficulties that result in some of these standards being breached. Most importantly, private pilots are forced to stick to their schedules.

Richter says: “Nearly any passenger pilot has to fear any disciplinary action when transferring to an alternate airport for security reasons, despite the risk of upsetting their passengers. Private pilots are usually alone in the cockpit. They need to assess the situation on the basis of their experience and subjective risk assessments, and they are more compelled to fly according to plan.”.

In some cases, this can lead to private jets having to fly to more distant airfields in worse conditions, increasing the risk that something will go wrong.

Investigators have not yet established the cause of the recent crash of a Learjet plane, but the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board said weather conditions would be the focus of the investigation. Air traffic control records showed someone in the cockpit saying they were experiencing "moderate turbulence" and that the crew was "handling the ice." The pilot can then be heard reporting that the plane is "gaining altitude" and then announcing that they are descending at 10,000 feet per minute.

The New York Post also reported that co-pilot Natalia Gadella Filgeiras had texted her boyfriend about ten minutes before the crash: "I have turbulence, I have ice.".

Murray Terway, an expert on pilot training and flight safety at Edith Cowan University, told The Daily Mail that about 80 per cent of all crashes are still due to human factors: Private flights have a lower level of regulatory oversight and are operated by crews with less experience and support. Therefore, they have a much higher accident rate than passenger aircraft.”.

However, experts still argue that such incidents create a significantly inflated picture of the danger, the Daily Mail points out.