The number of deaths in major passenger plane crashes increased in 2020 to 299, although there has been a drop in flights due to the coronavirus pandemic, Reuters reported, citing a Dutch consulting firm.

There have been 40  serious incidents with large passenger planes in the past year, of which five have been fatal, resulting in 299 deaths. In 2019, there were almost double the number of crashes (86), of which 8 were fatal. At the time, 257 people died, the company To70 noted.

In 2020, there were 0.27 fatal accidents per million flights or one fatal crash for every 3.7 million flights, compared with 0.18 fatal accidents per million flights in 2019.

Airlines have drastically reduced flights in 2020 because of the coronavirus pandemic. Flightradar24 reports that last year's decline was 42%, down to 24.4 million.

More than half of all those killed quoted in the To70 review were the 176 victims of the January 2020 crash, when a Ukrainian plane was shot down in Iranian airspace. The second deadliest incident was the crash in Pakistan in May, when 98 people died.

Over the past two decades, mortality rates in aviation has fallen dramatically. In 2005, there were 1,015 deaths in plane crashes worldwide.

Over the past five years, there have been an average of 14 fatal accidents, leading to 345 deaths a year.

2017 was the safest year in aviation, when there were only two fatal crashes with 13 deaths. There has been no fatal crash in the U.S. since February 2009. There is only one person perished in a plane crash during this period.

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