On January 29, 2025, American Airlines Flight 5342 collided with an Army helicopter in midair, resulting in the deadliest American aviation disaster since 2001, claiming the lives of all 67 passengers. Flight 5342 seems emblematic of a larger issue in America’s aviation industry: anxiety around air travel has increased, with stories about flight tragedies appearing more frequently. However, has traveling by plane actually become more dangerous?
The short answer is no. Although it may not seem like it, planes are getting safer to fly year after year. Though it is soon to see how 2025 will measure up, there were 63 aviation accidents in January 2025 compared to 80 in 2024 and 89 in 2023. This trend is reflected in the past 15 years of aviation data, demonstrating a steady decline in airplane crashes.
Despite the sustained decrease in incidents, frequency illusion is a powerful thing. This phenomenon occurs when a particular action or characteristic appears more frequently once noticed or identified, even though it is not. As news outlets observed the trend of airline accidents, their reporting of the phenomena increased, fostering viewer engagement with their media, ultimately resulting in increased revenue, causing the cycle to continue. The recent coverage of such accidents has sparked a heightened interest in aircraft incidents among the public.
Although panic around airlines may be overreported in the media, there is growing tension in aviation circles following Donald Trump’s recent decision to fire hundreds of Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) air traffic workers. Some suspect that this decision was influenced by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and its goal to reduce the federal workforce. In the days before the collision of Flight 5342, Trump had already fired all of the members of the Aviation Security Advisory Committee, a move many are criticizing as a change that could lead to disaster. Though these layoffs and recent aviation disasters appear unrelated, we have yet to see concrete evidence of the layoffs’ impact. Following the FAA cutbacks, the National Air Traffic Association said they were “analyzing the effect of the reported federal employee terminations on aviation safety, the national airspace system, and our members.”
While these tensions in Washington slowly simmer, the fact of the matter is that there is no reason to fear flying in an airplane. It is too soon to see the Trump Administration’s effects on aviation safety, and there is no apparent connection between recent layoffs and aircraft incidents. The recent wave of aviation panic seems to be another example of the frequency illusion, and frequent fliers have no reason to fear. However, with the Trump administration’s upcoming aviation changes, we may have to buckle in for some political turbulence ahead.
