Last year was one of the safest in aviation history, with the lowest number of crashes in 44 years.
There were 136 serious accidents in 2007, down from 164 crashes the previous year, the Aircraft Crashes Record Office (ACRO) said.
The figure is the lowest since 1963, although some accidents were still under review by insurance companies, ACRO said in a statement.
The Geneva-based organization said 965 people died in plane crashes in 2007 — a drop of 25% from the previous year.
Meanwhile, preliminary estimates by the International Civil Aviation Organization show air travel increased by over 3% in 2007 to about 2.2 billion passengers.
Almost a third of all crashes last year occurred in North America, with 34 accidents in the US alone, ACRO said.
However, the number of people killed in airline accidents in the US dropped from 75 in 2006 to 66 last year, according to a tally of incidents listed on the ACRO website.
Ronan Hubert, ACRO’s director, said aviation in general was becoming safer every year but that some countries, including the Democratic Republic of Congo, Indonesia, and Colombia, were slower to improve airline safety.
Most crashes involved small, propeller-powered planes, ACRO said. Larger, jet-powered planes accounted for only a quarter of accidents, but carried the highest fatality figures because of the greater number of passengers.
Report by David Wilkening
