A run of fatal airline crashes upends sterling safety record

By Allyson Versprille, Julie Johnsson and Gabrielle Coppola | Bloomberg

A spate of deadly airline crashes has tarnished the industry’s sterling track record, fraying the nerves of travelers and prompting questions about how the world’s safest form of transportation can respond.

The tragedies began on Christmas Day when an Azerbaijan Airlines plane crashed in Kazakhstan, killing 38 people. Days later, an aircraft operated by Jeju Air Co. skidded down a runway in South Korea and smashed into a concrete wall, causing 179 deaths. The two accidents turned 2024 into the deadliest year in commercial aviation since 2018, after no fatalities at all on large passenger jetliners in 2023.

Disasters continued in 2025, with a midair collision between a US Army helicopter and American Airlines Group Inc. regional jet near Washington last month that killed 67 people. And on Monday, a Delta Air Lines Inc. regional jet crash-landed near Toronto and flipped on its roof, though there were no fatalities.

Besides their eerie and sudden concentration, there’s little that binds the catastrophes together. From a bird-strike and potentially faulty altitude readings to a suspected anti-missile volley and snowy weather — each accident has its own unique set of circumstances. That, in turn, makes it difficult to immediately point to any reforms to address.

And although the recent string of accidents may be statistical anomalies, they’re still startling given how US commercial passenger carriers had enjoyed years without a fatal crash, said Kristy Kiernan, a safety expert and associate professor at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.

“Those of us working in the industry would be strongly remiss if we didn’t take this as a time to look at our core assumptions and how we operate,” Kiernan said. “We have a very robust safety system and risk mitigation procedures. How did those fail? Where has that either broken down or had gaps that simply hadn’t manifest until now? It’s super-important that we do that.”

Just two years ago, the International Air Transport Association heralded 2023 as the “safest year for flying,” with no hull losses or fatal accidents involving passenger jets.

Hassan Shahidi, chief executive officer of the Flight Safety Foundation, said there’s no evidence that the tragedies point to systemic risks to air travel. The accidents do, however, underscore how regulators, airlines and others must “redouble their efforts” to ensure appropriate safety measures are in place, including the right training, adequate staffing, and modern tools and equipment, he said.

Worried travelers

Jeff Guzzetti, a former accident investigation chief for the US Federal Aviation Administration, cautioned that investigators must first finish their probes to identify whether there are potential connections that may not be clear today. But as accident experts pour over the wreckage of the aircraft, some travelers are worried when boarding a plane.

Sheron Yuen, a retiree who lives in a suburb of Detroit, said she thought safety would improve after a midair collision near Washington brought more attention to the issue.

“But after that incident there’s been so many more that happened,” she said in an interview from the Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport while waiting for a flight. Now, “I’m kind of wondering. I’m a little nervous actually.”

Johnny Jet, founder of travel advice website JohnnyJet.com, said he’s seen reader inquiries about the dangers of air travel jump roughly threefold over the last few months.

Others are less concerned. John Rose, chief risk and security officer of travel-management company Altour, said he’s seen no signs of softening demand for airline trips in response to the accidents. At the same time, more of the firm’s customers are asking about its risk protocols.

“A lot of organizations don’t necessarily put this as an utmost urgency because they haven’t had anything happen in the past,” he said.

And John Cox, a former airline pilot who’s now chief executive officer of consultancy Safety Operating Systems, stressed that aviation remains the safest form of travel, despite the recent crashes.

“I’m getting on an airplane Thursday without a second thought,” he said. “I don’t find any correlation or connection between” the crashes.

Trump firings

Recent moves by the Trump administration to cut federal workers have raised concerns among Democratic lawmakers and labor unions that those steps may in fact create further risks rather than address them.

Last week, the Trump administration fired workers across the federal government who were in their one-year probationary period, including hundreds of employees of the US Federal Aviation Administration.

US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said in a post on social media platform X that the layoffs affect less than 400 people out the agency’s tens of thousands, and that none who were fired were air-traffic controllers or “critical safety personnel.”

While experts said there’s no direct link between the staffing cuts and the latest accidents, they cautioned safety could erode over time.

Guzzetti, the former FAA official, said that all of the agency’s positions could be considered safety critical, especially given how difficult it is to recruit and retain people for those jobs. Eliminating workers also means that employees who are left have to pick up the slack, he said.

“Someone else is going to have to do the job of other people and be overburdened with too many tasks,” he said. “That could allow other tasks to more readily fall between the cracks and lead to an accident.”

And given the prevalent government narrative labeling many federal workers as expendable, recruitment is also bound to get much harder — if not impossible, said Dave Spero, the national president of the Professional Aviation Safety Specialists union that represents FAA workers.

“There’s nobody out there that’s going to go, ‘Oh, I want to go be a Fed right now,’” he said.

— With assistance from Nibras Suliman and Carrington York.

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