Recent plane crashes, landing mishaps and a shortage of air traffic controllers may have you gripping the armrests on your next flight a little tighter.
The collision of an Army helicopter and an American Airlines flight near Washington in January left 67 people dead, marking the first death in a U.S. commercial plane crash since 2009.
RELATED STORY | Remains of all 67 victims of the deadly plane-helicopter crash recovered
A few weeks later, a Delta plane slammed into a runway in Toronto, catching fire and flipping passengers upside down before they all managed to escape.
And the federal government has been highlighting a lack of air traffic controllers, using Uncle Sam and social media to urgently try to recruit more eyes to watch the increasingly congested skies.
Uncle Sam WANTS YOU to apply for this exciting, high-tech career manning our nation’s airport towers! pic.twitter.com/lKv0bDsSZP
— Secretary Sean Duffy (@SecDuffy) March 10, 2025
Although the aviation system may seem riskier these days, flying remains incredibly safe.
"It is literally safer than walking out of your own front door," said Nicholas Calio, president and CEO of Airlines For America, who was addressing lawmakers on Capitol Hill earlier this month.
The number of air crashes did increase slightly last year by 9%, according to the International Air Transport Association. That still equals just one accident out of every 881,554 flights.
The chances are many times greater of dying in a car crash or as a pedestrian.
In the first two months of this year, there were fewer — not more — aviation accidents compared to the same period last year, according to data compiled by the National Transportation Safety Board.
One reason it may feel like there are more crashes is the number of cameras now monitoring airports and in the pockets of virtually every passenger. Hobbyists train their lenses on runways all over the world to capture takeoffs and landings to post on social media for aviation enthusiasts.
"There's a whole cottage industry of folks that are called plane spotters," said veteran pilot Whiz Buckley. "They sit at the end of the runway in their spare time or whatever. Before all of that stuff, if something happened, you didn't get to see it."
If anything, the high-profile incidents have likely made flying safer, he said.
"This would be the best time to be flying because everyone's hyper vigilant and they don't want anything bad to happen," he said.
