(Bloomberg) -- Three crashes which have yet to be fully explained, involving the most modern airliners in the safest phase of flight, made last year the deadliest for air travel in almost a decade.
The loss of two Malaysian Air Boeing Co. 777s, one thought to have disappeared in the Indian Ocean, and flight MH17 presumed shot down over Ukraine, plus last week’s unexplained AirAsia tragedy, killed 665 passengers, accounting for 75% of the annual toll of 884, according to safety consultant Ascend Worldwide.
The run of mystery crashes, which began when Malaysian Airline System Bhd. flight MH370 vanished on March 8 and ended with the demise of AirAsia QZ8501 on a routine trip from Java to Singapore on Dec. 28, meant 2014 was the most lethal year in civil aviation since 2005, when 1,056 died, Ascend said. The number of fatal crashes was unchanged, and the balance involved older turboprops flying in emerging nations and conforming more closely to the typical profile for accidents in recent years.
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