A new online platform is offering aviation enthusiasts, researchers, and the public a geographic lens on the history of flight safety. CrashAtlas maps 18,243 aviation accidents and incidents recorded between 1919 and 2026, placing every event at the precise location where it occurred.
The site features an interactive world map that clusters incidents by region, overlays airports and routes, and supports searches by year, aircraft type, operator, and location. Users can also browse the archive through conventional pages organized by country, year, airline, aircraft, or cause.
Key Figures from the Database
- 18,243 recorded accidents and incidents since 1919
- 127,254 total fatalities across all incidents
- 108 years of data (1919–2026)
The United States leads in the number of recorded accidents (3,057), followed by Russia (1,233), the United Kingdom (679), India (577), and Canada (556). Among aircraft types, older models such as the Junkers Ju-52/3m and various Douglas C-47/DC-3 variants appear most frequently in the records, reflecting their widespread historical use.
The deadliest years in the database are concentrated in the World War II era and the 1970s–1980s. 1944 recorded the highest fatalities (3,272) and the most crashes (1,291). Other high-fatality years include 1945, 1972, and 1985.
The single deadliest accident listed is Japan Airlines Flight 123 on August 12, 1985, which killed 520 people when a Boeing 747SR crashed near Mount Osutaka in Japan. Other major disasters highlighted include the 1974 Turkish Airlines DC-10 crash (346 fatalities), the 1977 Tenerife runway collision (335), and the 1985 Air India bombing (329).
CrashAtlas presents the data as a documented historical record rather than normalized safety rates (such as accidents per flight hour or departure). The site notes that higher totals for certain countries or aircraft often reflect greater aviation activity volumes over time.
In addition to the map and searchable archive, the platform offers statistics pages covering top countries, common aircraft, deadliest years, and aircraft types ranked by total fatalities. Premium sections provide more detailed airline rankings and complete crash records.
The project arrives at a time when commercial aviation continues to demonstrate long-term safety improvements, even as the full historical database underscores the scale of earlier losses. Recent years show significantly lower incident and fatality numbers compared with mid-20th-century peaks.
CrashAtlas is available at crashatlas.com, where visitors can explore the interactive map or browse the archive by category.
