If you died in an airplane in 2024, chances are you were hit by a missile. Wednesday's crash of an Azerbaijani jet, taken out by an air defense system in Russia, gave that cause the largest slice of the pie in the chart.
Jetliners being accidentally blasted out of the sky has become the leading cause of commercial-aviation deaths over recent years, marking a new trend running counter to an otherwise improving safety picture. The crash Wednesday of an Azerbaijan Airlines jetliner in Kazakhstan, if officially confirmed as a shootdown, would be the third major fatal downing of a passenger jet linked to armed conflict since 2014, according to the Flight Safety Foundation's Aviation Safety
38 of the 67 people on board Azerbaijan Airlines flight JS-8243 were killed. According to reports, it was headed to Grozy in Chechnya, Russia, sustained the damage while trying to land in thick fog there, then diverted first to a nearby airport in Russia and ultimately to one in Khazakstan where it crash-landed. Video footage shows punctures consistent with anti-aircraft fire; Russia's Federal Air Transport Agency suggested that it was perhaps a bird strike.