Deaths on airliners have been trending downward for years

Tuesday's death was the first stemming from an in-flight accident on a US airliner since 2009, when a Continental Connection flight crashed into a house near Buffalo, New York, killing 49 people on board and one on the ground. The last fatal airline crash in the US was in 2013, when an Asiana Airlines jet crashed at San Francisco International Airport, killing three passengers. Southwest had never had an accident-related fatality of a passenger, although a boy died in 2006 when a Southwest jet skidded off a runway at Chicago's Midway Airport, crashed through a fence and collided with the boy's family's car. Deaths on airliners around the world have been trending down for more than a decade as planes become more technologically advanced and airlines and regulators apply lessons learned from past accidents. The Aviation Safety Network, which tracks accidents, reported recently that there were no commercial passenger jet deaths last year, although two turboprop planes were involved in fatal crashes in Russia and Angola. In 2016, a Daallo Airlines plane landed safely in Somalia after a bomb inside a laptop exploded and blew a hole in the fuselage. Only the bombing suspect was killed. Piece has other recent fatalities.<br/>