While Qantas has never had a fatal jet airliner accident, the Australian national airline suffered losses in its early days before the widespread adoption of jets in civilian aviation. These were mainly biplanes or flying boats servicing routes in Queensland and New Guinea.
On the morning of November 4th 2010, a Qantas Airbus A380 suffered an uncontained engine failure, shortly after leaving Singapore Changi Airport. Just minutes into the flight, one of the plane's engines failed and caused significant damage to the wing and other systems.
4 Qatar Airways
Like Etihad, the airline has never had a fatal accident, and its only hull losses have come about due to hangar fires during maintenance. Qatar Airways' planes, particularly its widebodies, are some of the industry's newest designs, and its fleet as a whole has an average age of 10.9 years old.
Qantas has been awarded the world's safest airline for 2023 by AirlineRatings.com, the world's only safety, product and COVID rating website.
In picking Qantas for the top spot, Airline Ratings editors said that during its 100-year operational history as the world's oldest continuously operating airline, it had amassed an "amazing record of firsts in operations and safety and is now accepted as the industry's most experienced airline".
Once again, Australia held its own with Qantas named the world's safest airline, followed by Air New Zealand and Etihad.
Qantas has reason to celebrate after a horror few years after being named the world's safest airline for 2023. The Australian airline has regained AirlineRatings.com's top spot for safety, beating last year's winner Air New Zealand by “the finest of margins”.
The top 10 safest airlines 2023
According to the AirlineRatings.com study, Qantas is considered the industry's most experienced airline because it has 100 years of operational history. Air New Zealand operates 20 domestic and 30 international destinations in 18 countries.
Qantas has been named the world's safest airline for the year. AirlineRatings.com has revealed its top 20 safest airlines for 2023, with the Australian carrier nabbing the top spot and two UAE airlines making the top 10, out of 385 carriers across the globe.
Indeed, one aircraft was shot down. In 1951, a de Havilland australia DHA-3 Drover crashed off the coast of New Guinea after the centre engine's propeller failed. The pilot and all six passengers were killed. Qantas has not since had a fatal accident, and only a handful incidents of note.
American Airlines…
American Airlines is at the top of the list, with 11 accidents, which caused 858 fatalities.
While Qantas has never had a fatal jet airliner accident, the Australian national airline suffered losses in its early days before the widespread adoption of jets in civilian aviation.
Trans Australia Airlines Flight 538 and the 1950 Australian National Airways Douglas DC-4 crash, with 29 fatalities each, remain Australia's worst civil air accidents and second-worst air accidents.
In 2019, 220 aircraft were involved in accidents in Australia, with a further 154 aircraft involved in serious incidents (an incident with a high probability of becoming an accident). There were 35 fatalities from 22 fatal accidents.
While AirlineRatings.com does not officially release rankings for the least-safe airlines, the following carriers featured at the bottom of the list with one-star rankings: Nepal Airlines (Nepal), Airblue (Pakistan), Sriwijaya Air (Indonesia), Blue Wing (Suriname), Pakistan International Airlines and Air Algerie ( ...
However, the Anglo-French Concorde with 11.36 percent fatal crashes per million departures has appeared on top of the 'least safe plane' lists.
Improving safety over time
Your odds of being in an accident during a flight is one in 1.2 million, and the chances of that accident being fatal are one in 11 million. Your chances of dying in a car crash, conversely, are one in 5,000.
Flying is still considered to be the safest way to travel, but accidents can happen. Roughly, there are between 70-90 plane crashes per year worldwide, including both commercial planes and privately-owned ones.
it comes as both airlines recently had planes turned around
Australia's national carrier regained its position as the airline rated the safest in the world in AirlineRatings.com's 2023 list. Its no-frills sister airline, Jetstar, also made the list of world's safest low-cost airlines.
Qantas tops world's safest airlines list again, with Virgin and Jetstar also featuring. Qantas has started 2023 with a feather in its cap, with the Australian national carrier nabbing the title of the world's safest airline as judged by safety rating website AirlineRatings.com.
Qantas Airways. Once again our homegrown airline Qantas has been crowned the best airline in the Australia/Pacific region.
Its main base is at Melbourne Airport. Both airlines have a strong presence in the Australian market and compete fiercely with each other on price and routes. Qantas is often seen as the more premium option, while Virgin Australia is seen as more budget-friendly.