2015 Was an ‘Extraordinarily Safe Year’ for Flying, Report Finds

The number of commercial airline accidents drastically decreased in 2015, making last year one of the safest for flying in the past five years, officials said.

There were 136 passenger deaths from four plane accidents last year, which is less than a quarter of fatalities from 2014, when 641 people died in airline tragedies, CNN Money reports. Over the last five years, there was an average of 504 deaths per year, according to the International Air Transport Association (IATA) report.

The figures were released Monday by the IATA. “In terms of the number of fatal accidents, it was an extraordinarily safe year,” IATA’s Director General and CEO Tony Tyler said in a statement. “And the long-term trend data show us that flying is getting even safer.”

The deadly Germanwings 9525 and Metrojet 9268 crashes in 2015 were not counted in the data since they were caused deliberately by “unlawful interference,” officials said. The Germanwings crash was apparently caused by the pilot’s suicide while the Russian jet was brought down by a bomb.