IATA’s 2025 Safety Report Signals A Better Global Accident Rate — But A Harder Warning For India

Release No.: SMF/PR/2026/02/016/v1

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Subhead: Safety Matters Foundation says India’s aviation system must look beyond headline accident numbers and act faster on precursor risks, oversight capacity, and human factors.

Gurugram, India — 10 Mar, 2026 — The release of IATA’s 2025 Safety Report shows that while global aviation improved its overall accident rate in 2025, the year also became significantly more severe in fatal outcomes — a warning that carries special relevance for India. Safety Matters Foundation said the report underscores a critical lesson for Indian aviation: safety cannot be judged only by top-line accident statistics, especially when precursor risks and systemic weaknesses remain visible.

According to IATA, the industry recorded 51 accidents in 2025, down from 54 in 2024, across 38.7 million sectors, with the all-accident rate improving to 1.32 per million sectors from 1.42 a year earlier. At the same time, severity worsened sharply, with 8 fatal accidents, 394 onboard fatalities, and a fatality risk of 0.17 per million sectors, up from 0.06 in 2024. IATA also noted that 2025 had the highest fatality count in seven years, with two major accidents accounting for more than half of all deaths, including the Ahmedabad, India accident of 12 June 2025.

“The real warning in IATA’s 2025 Safety Report is that aviation can look statistically better while becoming operationally less forgiving,” said Capt. Amit Singh, Founder, Safety Matters Foundation. “For India, this is the moment to look beyond comfort in low accident rates and ask whether hazards are being detected early, corrected deeply, and verified properly before they become tragedies.”

India’s most recent consolidated DGCA safety review, published in April 2025, presents a relatively strong official picture at the scheduled-airline level. For 2023, DGCA reported no accidents involving scheduled commercial operations and said India’s scheduled commercial accident rate remained below the global average. The review also indicated improvement in indicators such as unstabilized approaches continued to landing, runway excursions, and GPWS/EGPWS warnings.

However, the same review shows why complacency would be dangerous. Several State Safety Performance Indicators remained above target, particularly in areas linked to risk-bearing AIRPROX, incorrect compliance with ATC instructions, bird and wildlife strikes, and some loss-of-control precursor categories. DGCA’s own assessment of serious airprox events pointed to recurring themes including non-adherence to SOPs, CRM issues, expectancy bias, loss of situational awareness, and coordination failures.

Safety Matters Foundation said this gap between good top-line outcomes and persistent precursor risk is central to understanding India’s current position. DGCA’s 2023 oversight chapter recorded 4,052 surveillance actions, 86 Level I findings, 9,419 Level II findings, and 542 enforcement actions — evidence of an active regulator, but also of a system still detecting a large number of weaknesses across operations and oversight.

The events of 2025 make that tension more urgent. Government disclosures in Parliament said that 8 air accidents had occurred in India in 2025 up to late July, comprising 1 scheduled aircraft accident, 3 trainee-aircraft accidents, and 4 helicopter accidents. This suggests that India’s safety challenge extends beyond the main airline sector, with continuing vulnerability in training and helicopter operations.

Recent parliamentary scrutiny and media reporting have raised additional concerns around regulatory depth, staffing, and defect closure. Reports indicated major shortages in technical and regulatory staffing, alongside a significant number of aircraft showing repetitive defects, pointing to a safety issue that is not only about finding defects, but about ensuring effective closure and root-cause elimination.

Key Takeaways

• Global aviation’s accident rate improved in 2025, but fatal severity worsened
• India’s scheduled airline safety picture appears relatively strong in recent official reviews
• Important Indian precursor risks remain in ATC compliance, AIRPROX, wildlife strikes, and human factors
• Oversight activity is substantial, but the number of findings suggests persistent systemic weaknesses
• India’s wider safety exposure remains visible in training, helicopter operations, staffing gaps, and repetitive defects

“A mature Safety Management System is not proved only by the accidents it avoids, but by the hazards it sees, the discipline with which it responds, and the evidence that the fix truly holds,” added Capt. Amit Singh. “India has the architecture. The challenge now is operational depth, regulatory capacity, and relentless follow-through.”

Safety Matters Foundation believes the IATA report should be read not merely as a global scorecard, but as a call for sharper action in India on oversight capacity, precursor tracking, defect closure, human factors, and proactive learning before accidents occur. For a deeper exploration of these themes, readers may also refer to Capt. Amit Singh’s book, mindFly: Follies, Realities and Human Factors.

For more information, visit www.safetymatters.co.in.

ABOUT SAFETY MATTERS FOUNDATION

Safety Matters Foundation is dedicated to advancing safety awareness, preparedness, and responsible operational culture through education, advocacy, and public engagement. Based in Gurugram, India, the Foundation works to strengthen safer practices across sectors by focusing on prevention, human factors, and practical learning.
URL: www.safetymatters.co.in

MEDIA CONTACT:
Capt. Amit Singh
Founder, Safety Matters Foundation
Phone: ++919899399776
Email: admin@safetymatters.co.in
Website: www.safetymatters.co.in
X: @flyingamit, @safetymatters6

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