2017 safest year for air passengers

In a year when more people flew to more places than ever, 2017 was the safest on record for airline passengers, reports The Independent of the UK.

The Dutch-based aviation consultancy, To70, has released its Civil Aviation Safety Review for 2017. It reports only two fatal accidents, both involving small turbo-prop aircraft, with a total of 13 lives lost.

No jets crashed in passenger service anywhere in the world.

The two crashes which occurred on New Year's Eve - a seaplane in Sydney which killed six, and a Cessna Caravan which crashed in Costa Rica, killing all 12 on board -- are not included in the tally, since both aircraft weighed under 5,700kg -- the threshold for the report.

The first fatal accident included in the report was in October: an Embraer Brasilia operating as an air ambulance in Angola. The pilots lost control after reportedly suffering an engine failure, Seven people died, including the patient.

In November, a Czech-built Let 410 belonging to Khabarovsk Avia crashed on landing at Nelkan in the Russian Far East with the loss of six lives.

A much higher death toll occurred in Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan, when a Turkish Boeing 747 freighter belonging to ACT AIrlines overshot the runway and ended up in a village close to the airport, killing 35 on the ground as well as four crew.

The report warns that electronic devices in checked-in bags pose a growing potential danger: "The increasing use of lithium-ion batteries in electronics creates a fire risk on board aeroplanes as such batteries are difficult to extinguish if they catch fire.

In 2016, 271 people lost their lives in seven fatal events. They included the crash of an Egyptair flight from Paris to Cairo which killed 66, and a LaMia jet carrying the Brazilian football team Chapecoense which ran out of fuel in Colombia and crashed with the loss of 71 lives.

In 2015, 471 people died in four crashes; they included a Metrojet flight from Sharm el Sheikh to St Petersburg, Russia, which killed 224.

In 2014, 864 people died in five crashes, including the losses of two Malaysia Airlines: MH370, whose fate is still unknown, and MH17, downed by a missile over eastern Ukraine.