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 like a supernova A powerful and luminous explosion of a star. , over in an instant. The spinning descent of two aircraft into the 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., its temperatures only just above freezing. The wailing sirens of first responders who waded into those dark and icy depths in the hope of recovering just one life.
Nothing was to be done. Of the 64 people on an American Airlines passenger jet, and the three soldiers in the US Army Black Hawk helicopter it collided with, there were no survivors.
The cause of the accident has not yet been determined. Air traffic controllers made minor adjustments to the jet's flight path before landing. Upon contacting the helicopter to alert them, they received no response. Seconds later, they saw the crash.
At a White House briefing hours after the accident US President Donald Trump claimed that diversity, equity and inclusion hiring policies had played a part in the collision, but when pressed admitted there was no evidence for this.
It might seem like aviation accidents are everywhere. Recent weeks have seen an unprecedented rise in plane-related fatalities.
On Christmas Day, a Russian missile shot down an Azerbaijan Airlines plane in Kazakhstan, killing almost 40 of the 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 are just one in 11 million. The odds of dying in a car accident, by comparison, are one in 5,000.1
But some believe the golden age of aviation is over. They say that recent air accidents are far from being anomalies and we should begin to question what is making flying so much more hazardous.
1. Climate chaos? Some scientists think that climate change is increasing extreme turbulence, having recorded notable increases in clear-air turbulence over the half-century since records began. A scientist from the University of Reading predicted that by the 2060s, we could see a 180% increase in severe turbulence over the North Atlantic thanks to global warming.2 Extreme weather and flooding will also make air travel less viable.
2. Traffic jams? The space above big capitals like Washington DC is filled with hundreds of civilian and military flights per day. Coordinating commercial and military air traffic can be more complex and unpredictable than anybody would like to admit. But Washington DC is also sometimes called the world's "most controlled airspace", which is why accidents like this are so uncommon.3
3. Shrinking skies? World conflicts have served to shrink the amount of available airspace for Western airlines. Planes are currently banned from flying over Russia. They are also often unable to fly over Ukraine, Yemen, Afghanistan and other war-torn countries. As our available airspace is compressed due to geopolitical tensions, flight corridors become more and more congested, increasing the risk of accidents.
Flying still appears to be getting safer, according to scientists. In the period from 1968 to 1977, the probability of dying in a plane crash was one in every 350,000 - far more likely than now. 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 very 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.
Supernova - A powerful and luminous explosion of a star.
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
Supernova - A powerful and luminous explosion of a star.
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.