Two separate reports reveal a big find for 2017: zero crashes of commercial passenger jets anywhere in the world, report the BBC and Reuters. The reports come courtesy of the To70 Dutch consultancy group and the Aviation Safety Network, with the latter proclaiming 2017 "the safest year ever, both by the number of fatal accidents as well as in terms of fatalities." The ASN notes there were only 10 fatal airliner accidents in total last year (half cargo planes, half turbo-prop aircraft), resulting in 44 fatalities on the planes and 35 on the ground. Compare that with 2016, when the group registered 16 accidents that led to 303 deaths.
Meanwhile, To70 estimates that the fatal accident rate for large commercial aircraft stands at just one fatal accident per every 16 million flights (the BBC notes this figure was arrived at before a New Year's Eve crash in Costa Rica that killed 12).
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