Trouble in the Air Rare for U.S. Commercial Flights

In the first few weeks of 2020, at least two emergency landings drew national headlines.

On Jan. 14, the pilot of a Delta Air Lines Boeing 777 declared an emergency due to an engine issue shortly after taking off from Los Angeles International Airport. And on Feb. 3, another engine issue on an Air Canada flight from Madrid to Toronto caused the pilot to declare an emergency, turn around and fly back to Madrid–Barajas Airport. Both landed safely.

Despite the dramatic nature of these events, airplane emergencies are quite rare, particularly with commercial aircraft. In 2018, the last year for which global statistics are available, the International Civil Aviation Organization reported an accident rate of 2.6 accidents per 1 million departures for scheduled commercial operations.

“Flying is extremely safe,” said Michael Suckow, an associate professor at Purdue University’s School of Aviation and Transportation Technology. “Fortunately, there really aren’t common emergencies [in aviation]. We don’t like to focus on the one outlier, since there are tens of thousands of safe operations that are conducted daily.”

Most airline events are relatively minor. Blue Sky News reviewed the 62 incidents recorded by the Federal Aviation Administration in the two-week period from Jan. 28 to Feb. 10, 2020, which include commercial and non-commercial flights. Of those, 21 were labeled accidents, such as emergency landings and crashes. The other 41 are called “incidents,” which range from bird strikes to blown tires and hydraulic failures, along with a variety of mechanical issues.

Injuries and fatalities are rare. Only three of the 62 events involved