The truly extraordinary improvement in the safety record of air travel is an example of gradual but pervasive innovation with real impact. In 2017, for the first time, there was no death as a result of a commercial passenger jet crashing. There were fatal crashes involving cargo planes, private planes and propeller aircraft, but no commercial passenger jets. Yet that year also saw a record 37 million commercial flights. The number of airline accident fatalities in the world has declined steadily from over 1,000 people a year in the 1990s to just 59 in 2017, even as the number of people flying
...more
