Commercial airlines carried a record number of passengers in 2025 while recording fewer accidents than the previous year, but the total number of fatalities rose, according to the International Civil Aviation Organization's (ICAO) newly released Safety Report.

The Montreal-based UN aviation agency said scheduled commercial airlines carried close to five billion passengers on 38 million flights in 2025, both increases over 2024. Despite the higher traffic volumes, the overall number of accidents fell from 95 to 85, and the global accident rate improved by nearly 13 percent, from 2.6 to 2.2 accidents per million departures.

The report recorded a sharper improvement in fatal accidents, which fell from 10 in 2024 to four in 2025. The fatal accident rate dropped 60 percent, from 0.27 to 0.11 per million departures.

However, total fatalities climbed from 296 in 2024 to 387 in 2025, and the fatality rate—deaths per billion passengers carried—rose from 65 to 78. ICAO attributed the increase to the outsized impact of a small number of catastrophic accidents, noting that a single accident in 2025 killed 260 people.

"Zero fatalities in international aviation from accidents and acts of unlawful interference" remains one of three core aspirations in ICAO's Strategic Plan, the agency said, adding that eliminating rare but catastrophic events remains the industry's central safety challenge even as routine accident prevention improves.

The report uses data from scheduled commercial operations with aircraft that have a maximum takeoff mass above 5,700 kilograms and tracks progress under ICAO's Global Aviation Safety Plan, which is a framework that member states, regional bodies, and industry stakeholders use to guide safety strategy.

High-risk categories under scrutiny

ICAO's analysis again focused on five categories it designates as Global High-Risk Categories of Occurrences: controlled flight into terrain (CFIT), loss of control in flight, mid-air collision, runway excursion, and runway incursion. Together, these accounted for more than half of all fatal accidents in 2025.

Loss of control in flight remained the most significant concern, accounting for nearly a third of fatal accidents among the high-risk categories. ICAO said preventing such accidents, which often develop rapidly with little chance of recovery, requires sustained investment in pilot training, aircraft systems, and human-performance initiatives.

Although only one CFIT accident was recorded during the year, it accounted for more than 10 percent of global fatalities, underscoring the category's low frequency but high severity. Four mid-air collision accidents accounted for nearly 15 percent of fatalities worldwide, which ICAO said reinforces the need for collision-avoidance technology and robust air traffic management as airspace grows busier, including with the integration of drones and advanced air mobility vehicles.

On runway safety, the report noted a positive development: no runway incursion accidents involving commercial air transport were recorded in 2025, which ICAO linked to investments made under its Global Runway Safety Action Plan. Seven runway excursion accidents did occur during the year, one of them fatal.

Oversight gaps persist

The report also assessed how effectively national aviation authorities oversee safety, using ICAO's Universal Safety Oversight Audit Programme. The global average effective implementation score rose in 2025, and the number of states meeting ICAO's target level of safety oversight also increased.

ICAO identified three continuing weaknesses at the state level: resolving identified safety issues, maintaining sufficient qualified technical personnel, and conducting effective ongoing safety surveillance and inspections. The agency said addressing these gaps remains critical to accident prevention.

ICAO said the findings would help member states identify priority areas for their national and regional safety plans, and it described a "continuous cycle of reporting, analysis, monitoring, and action" as the way to close the gap to zero fatalities.

This week, ICAO published the full 46-page report.

Source: ICAO