Which Aircraft Have The Cleanest Safety Records?

Beyond comfort and fuel efficiency, safety is the priority for aircraft manufacturers and airlines across the globe. While flying is safe in comparison to many other forms of transport, accidents do happen. With this in mind, let’s take a look at the safest airliners utilizing data from 1970 onward. The data we examine in this video runs to 2019 and only considers aircraft that have had at least 50 production units.

[bkg]

It would be interesting to see the DC-10 line on that graph.

[josephchason]

The L-1011 is one of the safest aircraft ever built.

[NicoLDMB]

I’m always impressed by the safety of good old 340

[siripfreely]

Looking at just years in service and seat count isn't very useful though. The 737-600 for example has had no fatalities, but is it really safer than the 737-800? Only 69 -600s were built, and so there are much fewer flights with it compared to the -800 with 4991 units built. Similarly, the A340's clean record is impressive, but 377 entered airline service to begin with.

A more useful metric would take into account either passenger*mile travelled, or cycles flown in revenue service, or both.

[Blank]

If you disregard the 747-8 safety record because it's related to the original 747s or the NG due to its relation to other 737s, then by that logic, the A320NEO family should be disregarded for being related to the original A320s that got grounded for FBW teething issues

[NarutoHarryPotter]

Wow I had no idea 717 has such a good record while being such an old plane. That’s impressive! 👍

[darkpiano]

I’d say the Airbus A380 is the safest aircraft from all super heavies, it has 0 fatal crashes, or maybe the A340.

But Airbus won 🥇

[umi]

Dassault Mercure :Throughout their combined cumulative operational lifetimes, the Mercure accumulated a total of 360, 000 flight hours, during which 44 million passengers were carried across 440, 000 individual flights without any accidents occurring, and a 98% in-service reliability. --wikipedia

[raffiboi]

As a proud Brazilian, I am glad to see to see that Embraer is at the top of the list!

[bossfight]

One with many deaths is the DC10: THY981 and AAL 191, both caused by mechanical failures, some others to mention are ANZ901 and UAL232

[schalitz]

The Embraer ERJ series for sure. They have had no fatalities in their operational history.

[marc-andreservant]

It's not surprising that "big boy" aircraft like the 737 are safer than small turboprops. Commuter planes are often flown by less established airlines with poorer maintenance procedures, and they tend to fly shorter routes (therefore a greater percentage of their flight time is spent on departure and approach, which are more dangerous than cruise).

[dopepopeurban]

Personally I think a safety comparison should be focused on airlines, rather than aircraft types. For the most part, commercial aircraft do fly without any technical related incidents or accidents when properly crewed, maintained and operated. Most crashes can be attributed to the customer rather than the manufacturer, this applies to commercial, private and military aviation.

[heotak]

All modern aircraft from airbus and boeing are generally safe with no inherent design flaws that will result in a fatal crash with the exception of early 747s with faulty cargo doors (united 811) / faulty pylons (el al 1862), 767 unintended reverse thrust deployment (lauda 004) and 737 rudder hardover / 737max mcas. I’ve yet to find an incident where an airbus crashed/caused fatalities solely due to mechanical reasons.

[Daniel]

Can you do which airlines have the cleanest safety record next?

[mcmemeous]

It's mad that the Tenerife disaster counted around 1/6 of the 747 fatalities

[dchan]

what about the 777? It technically it has no deaths against it due to design. The only incident was due to plane design was the BA flight (everyone survived). And most of the lost of lives, was either hijacking (MH370), shot down (MH17).

[williewalker]

as long as it 's safe from take-off to landing for me, I am quite happy with any type!

[ranapratapsingh]

Airbus 320 and Embraer seems to be the safest planes.

[billyponsonby]

Crunching data is hugely complicated before it becomes worthwhile