WTF is Happening to Airplanes in 2025
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VOICE OVER: Rebecca Brayton
From door plugs blowing off to mid-air collisions, 2025 has been a turbulent year for aviation. Join us as we examine the recent spate of airplane incidents that have made headlines and sparked public concern. Is flying actually becoming more dangerous, or are we just more aware of every incident in the social media age? We'll analyze high-profile cases like Alaska Airlines Flight 1282, American Airlines Flight 5342, and Boeing's quality control issues. Despite the alarming headlines, statistics show air travel remains incredibly safe, with human factors now surpassing mechanical failures as the primary cause of incidents. Let us know in the comments where you're planning your next flight!
What the Fuck Is Happening to Airplanes in 2025?
Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we’re breaking down just why it seems like airplanes are, well… breaking down.
To paraphrase the “Family Guy” theme song, it seems today like all you see is plane crashes, plane crashes, and plane crashes on TV. Since early 2024, and particularly in the early months of 2025, it’s felt like every other week brings about a new story of some aviation malfunction, defect, or otherwise frightening in-air experience. You’ll likely have heard of Alaska Airlines Flight 1282… or, maybe a little less formally, “that flight where a freakin’ door blew off after takeoff.” On January 5, 2024, an unassuming Alaska Airlines flight departed from Portland, Oregon, on its way to Ontario, California at 5:06pm. Six-and-a-half minutes later, a poorly installed door plug separated from the plane’s airframe, resulting in an uncontrolled decompression. Thankfully, no one was seriously injured during the incident, and the flight safely returned to Portland International Airport just 20 minutes after it had taken to the skies. The accident created a media firestorm, and a subsequent investigation revealed that Boeing, manufacturer of the offending machine, had taken a lax approach to quality control procedures. Flight 1282 severely damaged Boeing’s credibility, and stoked mass panic about the safety of flying.
News about Boeing’s failure to protect its customers made headlines throughout the rest of 2024, as further research into Flight 1282 revealed an unfortunate pattern of cutting corners at the American aerospace manufacturer. Boeing machinists later went on strike from September to November, costing the corporation nearly $10 billion before a new contract was agreed to. So, yeah… a bad year to be Boeing. That’s especially when you factor in that 2024 was the deadliest year for flying since 2018, with disasters like those seen in South Korea, Germany, and Thailand adding to growing public wariness around commercial aviation. As if those incredibly frightening incidents weren’t bad enough, a slew of in-air tragedies in the first quarter of 2025 only served to scare people even more, and cause the general public to wonder… is flying safe anymore?
Over the course of just a few days in January, the United States experienced some of its most headline-making aviation accidents ever. On January 29, American Airlines Flight 5342 collided with a U.S. Army Sikorsky UH-50[a] Black Hawk helicopter in mid-air over the Potomac River in Washington, D.C. Tragically, everyone involved in the crash died: that’s all 64 passengers, and the 3 crew members of the helicopter. The deadliest American air disaster in almost 25 years, President Donald Trump blamed the collision on the diversity, equity, and inclusion policies set by the Federal Aviation Agency. The president’s remarks were widely condemned, and were criticized for their inaccuracy. This was especially pronounced once it became clear that, according to the National Transportation Safety Board, the “helicopter crew may have had bad information on the altitude from their altimeter, as the pilots had differing altitudes in the seconds before the crash.”
Of course, as we stated a little earlier, American Airlines Flight 5342 wasn’t the last deadly flight of January 2025. Two days later, on January 31, Med Jets Flight 056 crashed in Philadelphia, killing all seven people onboard, as well as one other person on the ground, in addition to 24 additional injuries. Air travelers faced yet another scary headline a few weeks later: on February 17, Delta Connection Flight 4819, arriving in Toronto from Minneapolis, crashed and overturned on the runway. Miraculously, no one was killed, although 21 people reported injuries, but all were discharged from hospitals in just a few days. While consumer confidence in air travel remains at a respectable level, there are signs that people are becoming increasingly wary of planes: according to an Associated Press poll, approximately 6 in 10 people surveyed “say traveling by plane, car, or foot is very or somewhat safe.” The poll also found that the public has little confidence in the federal government to maintain air safety.
So, all of this begs the question: are planes crashing more often? While there have, of course, been a number of high-profile incidents over the course of the past year or so, that doesn’t necessarily mean that airplanes are, altogether, any less safe than they have been in the past. The BBC, analyzing U.S. and worldwide trends in aviation data, “found that over the past two decades there has been a general downward trend in air accidents.” According to the National Transportation Safety Board,, “NTSB data shows a general fall in air accidents in the US from 2005 to 2024 despite a significant increase in the overall number of flights over this period.” That’s in addition to data from the International Civil Aviation Organization (or ICAO[b]), a U.N. body which backed up evidence of such a downward trend, even when considering their broad definition of what constitutes an “air accident.” Said Sir David Spiegelhalter, Emeritus Professor of Statistics at the University of Cambridge, “Random events do not occur evenly — they tend to cluster. So unfortunately we can expect aircraft accidents to [...] appear to be connected, even when they are not.”
Similarly, The Telegraph’s Greg Dickinson has spoken to how these statistics can seem simple and straightforward, but are actually highly nuanced and complex. Said Dickinson, “It is worth considering that incidents have always occurred at 35,000ft, but we have greater awareness of these with the proliferation of smart phones and social media. If every incident, however minor, is captured on video and posted online, the upshot is a skewed sense of flying becoming less safe. But the opposite is in fact true.” Yes, 2024 was a deadly and tragic year for aviation, but Dickinson is quick to point out that airplanes have actually never been safer and more accident-free. John Grant, an employee at the flight database and statistics company OAG[c], is quoted as saying “In 2024 there were over 37 million scheduled flights operated by airlines around the world and the number of major incidents could be counted on two hands.” As such, it seems that, given the available information, that human error is largely to blame for the painful aviation debacles we’ve talked about today. In fact, according to pilot Brian Smith, “So improved has been technology, that human factors like pilot error have overtaken mechanical or system failure as the main cause of accidents.” So, you can take a sigh of relief… and make sure your seat backs and tray tables are in their full upright position.
Where will you take your next flight to? Be sure to let us know in the comments below!
SPEEGLE-halter https://youtu.be/T86Xl1IhlgI?si=9AGKwnP38wNAMIRK&t=1444
[c]oh ay jee https://youtu.be/50BTQEn5Mrw?si=jw3j91BEt-whRJn0&t=37
Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we’re breaking down just why it seems like airplanes are, well… breaking down.
To paraphrase the “Family Guy” theme song, it seems today like all you see is plane crashes, plane crashes, and plane crashes on TV. Since early 2024, and particularly in the early months of 2025, it’s felt like every other week brings about a new story of some aviation malfunction, defect, or otherwise frightening in-air experience. You’ll likely have heard of Alaska Airlines Flight 1282… or, maybe a little less formally, “that flight where a freakin’ door blew off after takeoff.” On January 5, 2024, an unassuming Alaska Airlines flight departed from Portland, Oregon, on its way to Ontario, California at 5:06pm. Six-and-a-half minutes later, a poorly installed door plug separated from the plane’s airframe, resulting in an uncontrolled decompression. Thankfully, no one was seriously injured during the incident, and the flight safely returned to Portland International Airport just 20 minutes after it had taken to the skies. The accident created a media firestorm, and a subsequent investigation revealed that Boeing, manufacturer of the offending machine, had taken a lax approach to quality control procedures. Flight 1282 severely damaged Boeing’s credibility, and stoked mass panic about the safety of flying.
News about Boeing’s failure to protect its customers made headlines throughout the rest of 2024, as further research into Flight 1282 revealed an unfortunate pattern of cutting corners at the American aerospace manufacturer. Boeing machinists later went on strike from September to November, costing the corporation nearly $10 billion before a new contract was agreed to. So, yeah… a bad year to be Boeing. That’s especially when you factor in that 2024 was the deadliest year for flying since 2018, with disasters like those seen in South Korea, Germany, and Thailand adding to growing public wariness around commercial aviation. As if those incredibly frightening incidents weren’t bad enough, a slew of in-air tragedies in the first quarter of 2025 only served to scare people even more, and cause the general public to wonder… is flying safe anymore?
Over the course of just a few days in January, the United States experienced some of its most headline-making aviation accidents ever. On January 29, American Airlines Flight 5342 collided with a U.S. Army Sikorsky UH-50[a] Black Hawk helicopter in mid-air over the Potomac River in Washington, D.C. Tragically, everyone involved in the crash died: that’s all 64 passengers, and the 3 crew members of the helicopter. The deadliest American air disaster in almost 25 years, President Donald Trump blamed the collision on the diversity, equity, and inclusion policies set by the Federal Aviation Agency. The president’s remarks were widely condemned, and were criticized for their inaccuracy. This was especially pronounced once it became clear that, according to the National Transportation Safety Board, the “helicopter crew may have had bad information on the altitude from their altimeter, as the pilots had differing altitudes in the seconds before the crash.”
Of course, as we stated a little earlier, American Airlines Flight 5342 wasn’t the last deadly flight of January 2025. Two days later, on January 31, Med Jets Flight 056 crashed in Philadelphia, killing all seven people onboard, as well as one other person on the ground, in addition to 24 additional injuries. Air travelers faced yet another scary headline a few weeks later: on February 17, Delta Connection Flight 4819, arriving in Toronto from Minneapolis, crashed and overturned on the runway. Miraculously, no one was killed, although 21 people reported injuries, but all were discharged from hospitals in just a few days. While consumer confidence in air travel remains at a respectable level, there are signs that people are becoming increasingly wary of planes: according to an Associated Press poll, approximately 6 in 10 people surveyed “say traveling by plane, car, or foot is very or somewhat safe.” The poll also found that the public has little confidence in the federal government to maintain air safety.
So, all of this begs the question: are planes crashing more often? While there have, of course, been a number of high-profile incidents over the course of the past year or so, that doesn’t necessarily mean that airplanes are, altogether, any less safe than they have been in the past. The BBC, analyzing U.S. and worldwide trends in aviation data, “found that over the past two decades there has been a general downward trend in air accidents.” According to the National Transportation Safety Board,, “NTSB data shows a general fall in air accidents in the US from 2005 to 2024 despite a significant increase in the overall number of flights over this period.” That’s in addition to data from the International Civil Aviation Organization (or ICAO[b]), a U.N. body which backed up evidence of such a downward trend, even when considering their broad definition of what constitutes an “air accident.” Said Sir David Spiegelhalter, Emeritus Professor of Statistics at the University of Cambridge, “Random events do not occur evenly — they tend to cluster. So unfortunately we can expect aircraft accidents to [...] appear to be connected, even when they are not.”
Similarly, The Telegraph’s Greg Dickinson has spoken to how these statistics can seem simple and straightforward, but are actually highly nuanced and complex. Said Dickinson, “It is worth considering that incidents have always occurred at 35,000ft, but we have greater awareness of these with the proliferation of smart phones and social media. If every incident, however minor, is captured on video and posted online, the upshot is a skewed sense of flying becoming less safe. But the opposite is in fact true.” Yes, 2024 was a deadly and tragic year for aviation, but Dickinson is quick to point out that airplanes have actually never been safer and more accident-free. John Grant, an employee at the flight database and statistics company OAG[c], is quoted as saying “In 2024 there were over 37 million scheduled flights operated by airlines around the world and the number of major incidents could be counted on two hands.” As such, it seems that, given the available information, that human error is largely to blame for the painful aviation debacles we’ve talked about today. In fact, according to pilot Brian Smith, “So improved has been technology, that human factors like pilot error have overtaken mechanical or system failure as the main cause of accidents.” So, you can take a sigh of relief… and make sure your seat backs and tray tables are in their full upright position.
Where will you take your next flight to? Be sure to let us know in the comments below!
[a]https://youtu.be/e8wQIzJmJ40?si=O9rNIEnXpobBgSrP&t=14
[b]eye-KAY-ow https://youtu.be/EZV0SZ0t4rs?si=wA4zH_bCvGmJHLWP&t=21SPEEGLE-halter https://youtu.be/T86Xl1IhlgI?si=9AGKwnP38wNAMIRK&t=1444
[c]oh ay jee https://youtu.be/50BTQEn5Mrw?si=jw3j91BEt-whRJn0&t=37
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