If one were to only look at popular discourse, on social media or otherwise, one could easily be led to believe that air travel has become more dangerous. After all, in recent weeks, a number of high-profile, often deadly, aeroplane crashes have captured the world’s attention.Some of these crashes — including the recent mid-air collision over Washington DC which killed 67, and an aircraft going belly up in Toronto (where miraculously, no one died) — have also been captured on video, adding to public paranoia about flying.An Associated Press poll conducted after the Toronto incident found that while most Americans remained confident about flying, the recent spate of incidents had had a negative effect on the public’s perception. But a close look at aviation accident data suggests that it is probably safer to fly today than it has ever been in history.Matter of perceptionAccording to the World Health Organization (WHO), approximately 1.19 million people die annually in road accidents, and between 20 and 50 million more people suffer non-fatal injuries. In comparison, the number of annual air crash fatalities has mostly been in the hundreds since 2005, according to the UN body International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO).Of course, almost every human today travels on roads compared to a tiny fraction of the global population using aircraft. But even if one were to take these numbers into account, air travel is still much safer than road travel.Between 2012 and 2022, there were only 0.001 passenger deaths per 100,000,000 miles onboard airlines, compared to 0.54 deaths on passenger vehicles, according to data compiled by the US-based non-profit National Safety Council (NSC). “Over the last 10 years, the passenger vehicle death rate per 100,000,000 passenger miles was… 1,000 times higher than for scheduled airlines,” NSC said.Why then is there so much more brouhaha in public discourse about aviation safety? Experts have pointed to psychological factors.Story continues below this adFor instance, psychologist Paul Slovic argues that individuals are more likely to be afraid in situations they do not control (like on a commercial flight) than in situations they do control (like driving a car). Slovic also talks about the awareness of risk as a factor in how it is perceived — put simply, aircraft crashes are far more likely to make it to the news than the average road accident. (The Perception of Risk, 2000).Then there is the fact that most aviation accidents that do make and dominate the news cycle are catastrophic ones, meaning they are more likely to be fatal than not. While a majority of aviation accidents are not fatal, ones which are fatal often have 100% fatality (meaning no one aboard survives).The simple fact is that both aviation accidents and fatalities have shown a consistent downward trend over the past two decades, according to the data from the ICAO. (Charts 1 and 2).Chart 1: Accidents per 100 million commercial flights, 2005-23 (Source: ICAO)Accidents per million departures in commercial flights went down from 4.9 in 2005 to 1.9 in 2023 (the year for which the ICAO last published data). Notably, the ICAO’s definition of an aircraft accident is fairly broad, including even minor events where the aircraft is damaged and needs repairs, or temporarily goes missing.Story continues below this adChart 2: Aviation fatalities, 2005-23 (Source: ICAO)Similarly, air crash fatalities have shown a general downward trend, although this statistic is more prone to year-on-year fluctuation. For instance, in 2014, two major accidents contributed to almost 60% of the 911 total fatalities, the first being the Malaysia Airlines crash over the Indian Ocean which killed 239, and the second being the Malaysia Airlines crash over Donetsk, which took 298 lives.Chart 3: Commercial aircraft departure, 2005-20 (Source: ICAO)The downward trend in casualties and accidents is despite the number of flights having significantly gone up in the same period (not accounting for the slump caused by the Covid-19 pandemic). ICAO data show that the number of registered carrier departures — commercial flights — went up from 24.2 million in 2005 to 30.8 million in 2019. (Chart 3).In short, more people are flying than ever before, while fewer accidents are taking place than ever before, and an even fewer number of people are dying than ever before.Aircraft today are better built, more reliable, and well-equipped to deal with contingencies, pilots are better trained because of modern simulators, and significant improvements have been made in weather prediction and gathering various analytical data. Not only that, aviation safety protocols have been refined over time to be where they are today (remember, smoking was allowed in aircraft cabins till as recently as the 1990s).Story continues below this adAs former pilot Marco Chan told the BBC, the rising awareness of air disasters is driven by “accidents (which) are getting increasing exposure from social media platforms”. It’s thus not that flying has suddenly become risky. Rather more people are exposed to these accidents taking place than ever before, and in ways that were previously not possible.