The European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) and Eurostat, the European Union’s statistical agency, have published the 2025 Annual Safety Review, which provides quantifies the number of people that died or were injured in accidents which occurred either within EU’s territory or on EU-registered aircraft.
According to EASA’s report, a total of 116 people died in 2025 as a result of aviation accidents. The vast majority of these, 79, died in accidents involving fixed-wing powered aircraft. Helicopters and sailplanes accounted for 18 deaths each, while one person died in a balloon accident.
This figure represents an increase over the 91 deaths reported in 2024.
Of the 116 victims, 109 were in private non-commercial flights, including general and executive aviation. The largest single incident of this type in 2025 involving an EU-linked aircraft was the crash near Ankara, Turkey, in December 2025 of a Malta-registered Falcon 50 jet which was carrying an official Libyan delegation. Eight people were killed in that accident, including the head of the Libyan army.
When it comes to the non-commercial aviation accidents within the territory or airspace of the EU in 2025, the countries which registered the largest number of deaths were France, with 28 victims, Germany, with 12, and Romania and Slovakia, with six victims each.
Only four people died in commercial aviation operations in 2025. In comparison, there were 3 fatalities in 2024 and none in 2023.
Three other people were killed while performing specialized aerial operation, which include tasks such as crop-spraying, inspection flights and aerial photography, among others
The report warns that, while these are relatively low figures overall, particularly if taking into account longer historical series, a single major accident can dramatically alter the picture.
In this regard, 2015 is the most recent year in which commercial operations accounted for the majority of deaths in aviation within the EU. This was due to the pilot-provoked crash of Eurowings flight 9525 in the French Alps.
The number of people which were injured in aviation operations in 2025 came to 143, which represents a significant decrease compared to the 215 reported in 2024.
The majority of those, 93, were registered, again, under the category of airplane operations, although balloons and sailplanes accounted for 19 and 17 cases, respectively. 12 people were injured in helicopter operations and, interestingly, there were two cases of injuries in the operation of unmanned aircraft systems.