Boeing vs Airbus, by Accident Statistics in the US
“I will never fly Boeing again”
You've probably come across this line. The recent Boeing accidents have sparked all types of skepticism among passengers and analysts. But is Boeing's accident record significantly larger than Airbus's?
In this article we analyze the accidents database from the US National Transportation Safety Board (NSTB) to find out.
United States data
We will only focus on US accidents, which are the ones covered by the NTSB. Due to this, the Boeing 737 MAX 9 accidents that occurred in 2019 with Ethiopian airlines and in 2018 with Lion Air airlines are not included here.
The NTSB keeps a record of every accident that occurred in the US, or outside of the US as long as it was operated by a US airline. For example, a flight from New York to Rome that experiences a problem when flying over France will be recorded in the NTSB database.
Considered accidents
According to the NTSB, an accident is “an occurrence associated with the operation of an aircraft”. Serious injuries and fatalities are obviously included here, but the scope is not limited to that. Any plane experiencing a malfunctioning system will also be recorded, even if no passenger noticed it.
If you are after an analysis of only accidents that caused fatalities, take a look at our article on the safest planes.
Since we are after a quality evaluation of the planes, we will only consider accidents caused by a malfunctioning system. This includes systems that fail during normal operation, or that fail after being exposed to factors that they should be able to handle; for example, a lightning strike, which is relatively common in aviation.
Analyzed accidents- Malfunctioning aircraft systems: engines, landing gear, hydraulics, etc.
- Adverse weather: turbulence or hail.
- Falls in the cabin, burns from hot coffee, etc
- Mistakes from air traffic control
- Mistakes from pilots
- Mistakes during re-fuel at the airport
- Mistakes from baggage or towing trucks
- Bird impacts
Number of flights
Since we are only focusing on US accidents, we need to account for the larger amount of Boeing flights than Airbus in the US, as this could imply more Boeing accidents.
The US is dominated by Boeing, but Airbus has been increasing it's numbers over the years, and also it's share. As of 2024, Boeing has 6701 registered planes, and Airbus 2283, an important increase compared to the 1397 Airbus planes in 2014.
To estimate the total number of flights per year, the fraction of Airbus and Boeing planes in the whole aircraft carrier fleet was multiplied by the total number of flights recorded by the Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS).
Overall, Boeing has three times more flights than Airbus in the US, so we could expect three times more accidents as well. We can clearly see the drop in traffic during the Covid-19 years, and the gradual recovery that we are now experiencing.
Accidents due to malfunctioning systems
First things first: these numbers are very very good. With over 6 million flights per year, 2-6 accidents (none of them involving fatalities), is almost nothing. This is the reason why flying is the safest transport mode, ahead of bus and train.
The only problem of having few accidents is the higher statistical error of any metric derived from them. For example, if one year Boeing has two accidents, and another one four... does the 100% increase indicate a decline in safety? Or is it due to an unfortunate coincidence where one accident happened in January 2nd, and if it would have happened a few days earlier the data will show a stable three accidents per year?
With such impressive accident record, it is therefore impossible to quantify exactly the safety level of Boeing and Airbus. The data below should only be taken for reference and indication of trends.
With that said, Airbus accident rate was higher in the pre-Covid years, whereas Boeing has a larger accident rate over the past three years. But again, these numbers should be taken with caution. For Airbus, there was no sudden decline in quality in 2017 as the peak might suggest, it simply had one more accident than last year.
What caused the accidents?
I think that it would be interesting to describe in short the actual cause of the accidents. In the list below, each accident is presented with it's NTSB identifier, so if you want to get more information on a specific accident, simply make a search with that identifier.
Airbus 2014- ENG14IA028: engine fire due to blade fracture
- CEN15IA225: crack in the windshield outer pane due to moisture
- ENG17IA003: engine fire due to fuel manifold fatigue crack
- DCA17CA087: parking brake malfunction that caused a sudden stop while taxiing
- DCA17WA115: problems with the wing spoilers during climb, returned to airport
- DCA18LA163: engine fire due to hydraulic fluid leakage
- No accidents
- ENG21WA010: engine sparks and vibrations during cruise
- No accidents
- DCA22LA212: uncommanded movement of the horizontal stabilizer control wheel
- ENG23LA033: loss of both electrical generators
- No accidents
- ENG15IA037: shutdown of the display system due to lightning strike
- ENG14IA027: engine fire due to blade crack
- ENG14IA019: fuel leakage from the integrated drive generator, and ignition
- DCA15CA176: engine jet blast striking ground personnel
- ENG16IA001: engine loss of power due to damaged low pressure turbine
- DCA17FA021: engine fire due to high pressure turbine failure
- DCA16FA217: engine fan blade breaks and pierces the fuselage, leading to depressurization
- DCA17WA220: loss of cabin pressure due to damaged equipment
- DCA17WA176: loss of cabin pressure
- ENG17IA026: engine loss of power due to blade fracture
- ENG17IA027: engine loss of power due to failure of the alternator gear shaft
- DCA18MA142: engine fan blade breaks and blows off a window, leading to depressurization
- DCA18IA092: engine failure due to fan blade fracture
- No accidents
- DCA20LA107: dorsal fin separates during flight damaging stabilizer due to bad bolts
- DCA22WA020: loss of cabin pressure
- DCA21FA085: engine fire due to fan blade fracture and bad engine inlet design
- DCA23WA014: hydraulic pump failure that releases sparks out from the plane
- ENG22WA025: engine failure that releases sparks
- ENG22WA018: engine failure over the Atlantic, diverted to Ireland
- DCA22WA078: failure of the automatic pressurization system
- ENG22FA009: landing gear failure due to fatigue
- DCA23LA468: fire under right wing during takeoff
- DCA23FA417: left main landing gear collapses on landing
- DCA23LA409: landing gear issue
- ENG23LA031: engine fire during taxi
- DCA23FA339: nose landing gear didn't extend during landing
- DCA23WA302: engine surge shortly after takeoff
- DCA24LA206: sudden aircraft instability due to damaged vertical tail or rudder, dutch roll
- ENG24WA013: engine exhausting small pieces
- DCA24FA120: left landing gear brakes, runway excursion
- DCA24LA095: brake system anomaly that ended in runway excursion
- DCA24LA094: stuck rudder pedals which did not allow to center the plane during landing
- DCA24MA063: door plug suddenly departed from the fuselage due to bad bolts
Common malfunctioning systems
We can see that engines and landing gear are the main cause for accidents. This is somewhat understandable given the huge loads they are submitted to, making them likely to suffer from fatigue that can end up in fractures if these are not identified during maintenance.
Engines are produced mainly by Pratt & Whitney, Rolls-Royce, General Electric and CFM International. All engines have an expected failure rate, measured in shutdowns per 1,000 flight hours. Older engines have values of about 0.02 failures per 1000 hours, and newer models like the CFM Leap push it down to 0.002 per 1,000 flight hours. This means that they are very reliable, but that, at some point, they will fail.
It's important to stress that, even if the parts are produced by external suppliers, Boeing and Airbus have the ultimate responsibility for their safety. They need to test them in-house to verify that they fulfill the quality criteria claimed by their suppliers.
The most concerning accidents
From all the accidents listed above, the most concerning one is the well-known DCA24MA063 from Boeing in 2024, where a door plug suddenly departed from the fuselage. But, perhaps already forgotten in the media, the DCA20LA107 in 2020 is equally concerning. The root cause of these two accidents seems to be the same one: faulty bolts that end up with part of the fuselage being ripped off mid-flight. Both very concerning, and perhaps pointing to a deeper issue.
Boeing does not produce the fuselage themselves, they buy it from Spirit AeroSystems, previously a part of Boeing. It doesn't matter whether it was Spirit's fault with the bolts. Boeing's quality control should have spotted it and fixed it.
Two other Boeing accidents with similar equally concerning consequences are the blade fractures that pierced the fuselage and window, the DCA16FA217 and DCA18MA142. The fuselage is reinforced around the engines to avoid this issue, but it was clearly not enough for these two cases.
From Airbus, the accident that I see most concerning is the DCA22LA212 in 2022. The horizontal stabilizer is located at the tail of the wing, and seeing it oscillate is not great. What is worse, the investigation was not able to conclude what was the cause of this issue, only that it was specific to that aircraft due to a recent change that had been done on it. The ENG23LA033 in 2023, where both electrical generators were suddenly lost, is also concerning. At least here the backup RAT and APU were successfully initiated, highlighting the importance of backup systems in aviation.
Other accidents
Many Boeing and Airbus accidents that we see on the media are not at all due to a faulty design. I will just briefly mention two examples that were excluded in this analysis, but are useful to highlight the external factors that these manufacturers are exposed to.
The DCA21WA063 in 2020, where the engines and wing of an Airbus got entangled in a pyrotechnic balloon; and the ENG16IA027 in 2016, where a Boeing's engines caught fire due to an inadequate sealing of the fuel line after re-fueling was done at the airport.
Is Boeing less safe than Airbus?
Both Boeing and Airbus are extremely safe. When it comes to determine which one is safer, Airbus does have a better accident record than Boeing in the US for the recent years, with Boeing having two dangerous fuselage rips due to bad bolts.
Aviation suffers (and benefits) from the same challenge as nuclear power: despite being extremely safe, the high perceived risk demands an absolute zero accident rate, something that they are close to achieve, but that, understandably, cannot be made. When an accident occurs, it will fill all the headlines and bring a sense of risk that is not realistic.
Should you be concerned for your next Boeing flight? No. You should be concerned of the taxi drive going to the airport, which is much more dangerous!