Is flying still safe? Here’s what experts say

The midair collision on Wednesday night over the Potomac River near Washington DC is the latest in a string of global incidents that have many air travelers on edge. There are believed to be no survivors of the American Airlines crash, which comes on the heels of deadly Jeju Air and Azerbaijan Airlines accidents in December and about a year after an alarming Boeing door panel blowout and a separate fiery runway collision in Japan. And in 2023, a string of near-collisions at US airports spurred the creation of a new independent safety review team. Understandably, anxiety around flying has spiked. So should passengers be concerned? “I don’t know that passengers should be worried, but I think it’s important for the flying public to be vocal and demand that the government and the different entities do everything possible to make air travel as safe as possible,” said Anthony Brickhouse, a US-based aviation safety expert. But even accounting for serious accidents, “statistically speaking, you’re safer in your flight than you were driving in your car to the airport,” said Brickhouse, who has decades of experience in aerospace engineering, aviation safety and accident investigation. “Air travel remains the safest mode of transportation,” he said.<br/>