In 2022, 147 fatalities were recorded in aviation accidents that happened on EU territory and involved EU registered aircraft, according to data from the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) and Eurostat.
Similarly to previous years, most of the fatalities occurred in the general aviation category. General aviation (aeroplanes and helicopters) consists of all civil aviation operations other than commercial air transport and specific types of aerial work operations. General aviation has two sub-categories: operations with aircraft with a maximum take-off mass (MTOM) above 2,250 kg and below 2,250 kg. More specifically, the latter sub-category, which comprises small aeroplanes, dirigibles, para- and motor-gliders, ‘microlights’, small helicopters as well as hot air balloons, recorded the highest share of fatalities (83 % or 112 of all fatalities in aviation accidents). In the above 2,250 category, only one death occurred last year.
The second category with the most fatalities was commercial air transport, which represented 11.6% (17 people killed) of all fatalities in aviation accidents. In comparison, there was no fatality in 2021, three occurred in 2020 and 21 in 2019. From 2012 to 2022, no major accidents were recorded in commercial air transport in the EU involving EU-registered aircraft. The exception was 2015, when 150 fatalities were recorded in the crash of a German aircraft in the French Alps.
Lastly, fatalities involving aerial work accounted for 4.8 % (7 people killed) of all fatalities in aviation accidents. Aerial work denotes the operation of aircraft for specialised services, such as agriculture, construction, photography, surveying, observation and patrol, search and rescue as well as aerial advertisement.
Moreover, from 2016 to 2022 no major accidents involving EU registered aircraft were recorded in commercial air transport anywhere in the world. However, 2015 was marked by the German aircraft crash mentioned above and the accident on the Sinai Peninsula (Egypt) involving an Irish-registered aircraft on a charter flight (224 fatalities).
Before that, in July 2014, an aircraft registered in Spain, but leased to an Algerian operator, crashed in Mali (116 fatalities). In 2009, the accident over the South Atlantic Ocean involving a French aircraft on the way from Brazil claimed 228 lives, representing 91 % of all fatalities registered that year. A year earlier, the crash of a Spanish jet during take-off from Madrid’s Barajas airport resulted in 154 fatalities. In 2006, an accident involving a French-registered aircraft, operated by a Russian company, crashed in Irkutsk (Russia). This incident accounted for 125 deaths that year. In 2005, 121 fatalities were victims of a crash of a Cyprus-registered aircraft close to Athens.
The years when not a single person was killed in an air transport accident in the European Union were 2010, 2013 and 2021.
