Report: 2017 was safest year for commercial airline passengers ever

Zlati Meyer | USA TODAY

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The friendly skies are safe, too.

A new report finds that 2017 was the safest year for commercial air travel ever -- with only 111 accidents and 13 deaths worldwide.

The two fatal accidents both involved small regional planes -- an Embraer Brasilia that lost control in flight in Angola after a reported engine failure in October and a Let 410 that crashed while landing Russia in November -- according to the Netherlands-based aviation consultancy, To70.

That's a rate of one fatal accident for every 16 million flights, the firm calculated.

Compare that to 2016, which had 71 civil aviation accidents, six of which were fatal.

To70 studies data involving only larger passenger aircraft, which is why the two fatal crashes this New Year's Eve weren't included in the tally.

Richard Cousins, the CEO of one of the world's largest food service companies, died along with four relatives and the pilot when their seaplane crashed in Australia. Ten Americans and two crew members were killed when their single-engine plane crashed into a mountain in Costa Rica.

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"Despite the good news, a note of caution needs to be sounded. Whilst the safety levels of modern civil passenger airplanes remain high, the extraordinarily low accident rate this year must be seen as a case of good fortune," the consulting company said in its 2017 Civil Aviation Safety Review, which noted that air traffic's 3% growth in 2017 over 2016 helped the statistics a bit. "There is no room for complacency. Civil aviation, whilst an industry with a very high level of safety, does still carry very large risks."

In addition, the report excludes fatalities on the ground, like the 35 people killed in Kyrgyzstan when a cargo plane sped past the runway into a neighboring village in January and the person killed by a jet blast as she stood close to the fence at the Princess Juliana International Airport in St. Maarten in July.

To70 pointed out there were noteworthy non-fatal accidents in 2017, such as when an engine on an Airbus A380 superjumbo jet, an Air France flight from Paris to Los Angeles, failed over Greenland and had to make an emergency landing in Newfoundland, Canada, in September.

This state has the most flyover traffic As some of us get ready to hop aboard flights to visit loved ones over the holidays, there are a few states that will be flown over more than others.

Other aviation safety issues To70 highlighted for the industry to think about were onboard fires caused by lithium-ion batteries in passenger electronics, mental health problems and fatigue.

Follow USA TODAY reporter Zlati Meyer on Twitter: @ZlatiMeyer