Flying was less deadly in 2012 than in any year since 1945, however, not all airlines are equally safe.
According to a report by Business Insider, the Jet Airliner Crash Data Evaluation Centre, which collects information about aviation accidents and safety, recently published its annual Airline Safety Ranking.
The ratings take into account the number and deadliness of hull loss accidents and serious incidents in the last 30 years of operation in relation to passenger miles flown. The ratings also take into account international safety benchmarks such as the IOSA Audit and the USOAP country factor, along with a time factor which increases the effect of recent accidents.
As per the Business Insider, the results do not account for the cause of hull losses or whether the airline is at fault, so they are an imperfect measure of safety.
Of 60 ranked airlines, Business Insider reported that these are the ten with the worst safety records, including the number of hull losses and passenger deaths in these accidents since 1983:
#10 SkyWest Airlines: 3 hull losses; 22 dead
#9 South African Airways: 1 hull loss; 159 dead
#8 Thai Airways International: 5 hull losses; 309 dead
#7 Turkish Airlines: 6 hull losses, 188 dead
#6 Saudia: 4 hull losses; 310 dead
#5 Korean Air: 9 hull losses; 687 dead
#4 GOL Transportes Aéreos: 1 hull loss; 154 dead
#3 Air India: 3 hull losses; 329 dead
#2 TAM Airlines: 6 hull losses; 336 dead
#1 China Airlines: 8 hull losses; 755 dead
If you or someone you know have been injured by a defective aircraft, contact the attorneys at Abraham, Watkins, Nichols, Agosto, Aziz & Stogner by calling (713) 222-7211 or 713-222-7211.