2017 the safest year for commercial air travelJORDAN MANSFIELD/GETTY-IMAGES Airline travel has been getting steadily safer since 1997, statistics show. 2017 was the safest ever year for commercial aviation with only 10 fatal airline accidentals, resulting in the deaths of 44 passengers and 35 people on the ground. More than 36 million commercial flights took place in 2017, meaning the fatal accident rate for flights involving commercial passengers was fewer than one per 7 million flights, ASN said. The worst air accident last year involved the crash of a Myanmar Air Force Y-8F transport plane that resulted in 122 deaths. The 44 civilian deaths worldwide from commercial air travel compares with 380 fatalities on New Zealand roads last year, a figure associate transport minister Julie Anne Genter described as "unacceptable".

Source: Stuff January 01, 2018 00:11 UTC