Is flying getting more dangerous? A plane collision near Washington DC has left no survivors, in a tragic accident President Donald Trump called "a dark and excruciating night in our nation’s history".
Skaters killed in horror plane crash
Is flying getting more dangerous? A plane collision near Washington DC has left no survivors, in a tragic accident President Donald Trump called "a dark and excruciating night in our nation's history".
A bright flash, over in an instant. The spinning descent of two aircraft into the freezing Potomac RiverA major river in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States that flows from the Potomac Highlands in West Virginia to the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland.. The wailing sirens of first responders who waded into those dark and icy depths in the hope of recovering just one life.
But of the 64 people on an American Airlines passenger jet, and the three soldiers in the army helicopter it collided with, there were no survivors.
It might seem like aviation accidents are everywhere. Last Christmas Day, a Russian missile shot down an Azerbaijan Airlines plane in Kazakhstan, killing almost 40 people on board. Just days later, 179 people were killed after a crash-landing on a runway in South Korea.
You might be surprised to hear then that flying is by far the safest form of transportation. A Harvard study from 2017 discovered that the odds of dying in a plane crash were just one in 11 million.1
But some say air accidents are becoming more common, raising the following concerns:
1. Climate chaos? Some scientists think that climate change is increasing extreme turbulence and making crashes more common. One scientist predicted that by the 2060s, we could see a 180% increase in severe turbulence over the North Atlantic thanks to global warming.2
2. Traffic jams? The space above big capitals like Washington DC is filled with hundreds of civilian and military flights every day.3
3. Shrinking skies? World conflicts have made the amount of available airspace for Western airlines smaller. They are currently banned from flying over vast areas of Russia. They are also often unable to fly across Ukraine, Yemen, Afghanistan and other war-torn countries. This makes flight corridors more congested.
Flying still appears to be getting safer on the whole, according to statistics. And the vast majority of accidents are caused by human error, rather than external factors.
But others say we should take recent crashes as a warning that instabilities on land will always lead to instabilities in the sky.
Is flying getting more dangerous?
Yes: 2024 was one of the worst years for air accidents in recent history, and 2025 looks to be going the same way. War, climate change and technology are all coming together to make flying more dangerous.
No: There is no evidence at all that it is getting more dangerous to fly. In fact, the consensus from scientists is that it keeps getting safer. Research shows that commercial flight becomes roughly twice as safe every decade.
Or... Aviation insecurity is symptomatic of broader concerns about safety. We live in an age of large-scale war and geopolitical uncertainty, and we are approaching a tipping point. People feel wary of entering the skies because of these international tensions.
Potomac River - A major river in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States that flows from the Potomac Highlands in West Virginia to the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland.
Skaters killed in horror plane crash

Glossary
Potomac River - A major river in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States that flows from the Potomac Highlands in West Virginia to the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland.