It simply doesn't get enough publicity, considering the fact that modern aviation has reached a point where tens of thousands of giant metal tubes filled with the most flammable liquid can launch themselves into the air at hundreds of miles per hour every day and almost nothing ever goes wrong.

2023 was the safest year in aviation history, with no large, turbofan-powered jet aircraft being involved in anything resembling a crash anywhere on Earth, meaning that scenario just laid out took place tens of thousands of times every day for 365 days without a single fatal crash or collision.

Even fatality risk onboard an aircraft is becoming a percentage of a percentage point, with just 2 losses of life occurring from machine or technical malfunctions onboard.

That's not to say that no one died onboard aircraft-there were several fatal crashes involving smaller aircraft, one of which- Embraer Legacy 600-was carrying 7 passengers but also the mercenary commander of the Wagner Group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, and two of his allies in the aftermath of their mutiny against the Russian strongman Vladimir Putin.

One wonders why anyone would board an aircraft under those circumstances, and if investigations into the failure of aircraft in flight is one of the most rigorous in society (and they are) then by contrast we can say that the investigation into Embraer Legacy 600 was unacceptably improper.

There was also Yeti Airlines flight 691, which was an ATR 72 prop plane that went down en route to Kathmandu with 75 people on board. All perished after the plane stalled.

But along with representing a much lower share of world air travel and containing technical differences owing to the propellers, this incident, the deadliest of 2023, wasn't included in the analysis.

So putting aside political assassinations, the skies were safer than at any point in human history, and hopefully the sometimes brusque, always stressed, but evidently competent 600,000 people in America's airline industry will see 2023 as a challenge to replicate.

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