Airbus · Single-aisle jet
Airbus A320 family
Is the Airbus A320 family safe? It ranks Shared rankWithin 1 point of other aircraft types: the difference is not meaningful.More in the glossary of 53 airliner families we rate, with 11 fatal accidents counted in about 240 million passenger flights.
How the score is built
- Fatal passenger accidents
- 11 in 236 million flights
0.047 fatal passenger accidents per million flights. Counted: passenger flights, accidents and unexplained losses; not counted: sabotage, hijackings, shoot-downs and deliberate crew acts.
- Full-loss equivalents
- 8.6
Each counted accident adds the share of people on board who died (1 = no survivors). This is what the score is based on.
- Flights flown
- 236 million
Estimated passenger departures. Passenger departures 1988 to 7 October 2026. 2019-2022: OpenSky flights by passenger airlines, re-weighted to World Bank departures country by country. Other years: fleet model (deliveries with almost no retirements yet, about 1,669 departures per aircraft per year, calibrated on OpenSky 2019). Uncertainty roughly ±25%.
- Technology generation
- Gen 4 jet (fly-by-wire with flight envelope protection)
Small fleets are pulled toward the record of their generation: 0.041 full-loss equivalents per million flights over 328 million flights. Weight of this family's own record: 99%.
- Last fatal passenger accident
- 22 May 2020
Pakistan International Airlines - PIA, 1,4 km E of Karachi-Jinnah International Airport (KHI), Pakistan: 97 of 99 people on board died.
- Hull losses
- 59
Civil aircraft destroyed or written off from all causes, including non-fatal accidents, cargo flights and attacks; airframes flown by air forces on military operations are left out (context only, not in the score).
Compared with everyday risks
One flight on the Airbus A320 family carries about the same risk of death as the activities near it below.
- One flight on the Airbus A320 familyThis aircraft1 in 27 million
- An hour's walk1 in 14 million
- Driving 100 miles (160 km)1 in 5.9 million
- A day of skiing1 in 1.3 million
- An ordinary day: accidents and violence1 in 1 million
- A scuba dive1 in 500,000
- Cycling 100 miles (160 km)1 in 430,000
- Running a marathon1 in 290,000
- A skydive1 in 250,000
- A general anaesthetic1 in 100,000
- Riding a motorbike 100 miles (160 km)1 in 83,000
Accident history
11 fatal accidents count toward the score, with 1,104 people on board killed.
| Date | Flight | Killed | What happened |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pakistan International Airlines - PIAA320-214 · 1,4 km E of Karachi-Jinnah International Airport (KHI), Pakistan | 97 / 99 on board | Too high on approach to Karachi, the crew retracted the gear and touched down on both engines, then went around. The scraped engines lost oil and failed one after the other, and the aircraft came down in a residential area short of the runway. SOP breaches were cited.Type: Hard landing or abnormal runway contactASN record | |
| EgyptAir MS804A320-232 · ca 200 km N of Egyptian coast, Mediterranean Sea | 66 / 66 on board | The A320 crashed into the Mediterranean on a flight from Paris to Cairo after a fire on board; investigators did not agree on its cause. All 66 people on board died.Cause not yet established; counted.Type: FireASN record | |
| Indonesia AirAsiaA320-216 · Karimata Strait, Indonesia | 162 / 162 on board | A cracked solder joint caused repeated rudder limiter faults at cruise. The captain reset computer breakers in flight, which dropped the autopilot and changed the control law; the pilot flying then held the jet in a steep climb into a stall that lasted until it hit the sea.Type: Loss of control in flightASN record | |
| Airblue ED202A321-231 · 15 km NNW of Islamabad-Benazir Bhutto International Airport (ISB), Pakistan | 152 / 152 on board | Circling to land at Islamabad in poor weather, the captain went below minimum altitude, lost sight of the airfield and flew a self-made route into the Margalla Hills, ignoring 21 terrain warnings. The first officer, earlier belittled by the captain, did not intervene.Type: Flight into terrainASN record | |
| TACA International AirlinesA320-233 · Tegucigalpa-Toncontin Airport (TGU), Honduras | 3 / 135 on board | After a circling approach in poor weather, the A320 touched down long and fast on Tegucigalpa's short wet runway with a tailwind, overran and dropped down an embankment onto a street. Investigators faulted the decision to land without assessing conditions.Type: Runway excursionASN record | |
| TAM Linhas Aéreas JJ3054A320-233 · São Paulo-Congonhas Airport, SP (CGH), Brazil | 187 / 187 on board | Landing at Congonhas on a wet, ungrooved runway with one reverser locked out, the crew left one thrust lever in the climb position. Spoilers and autobrake did not deploy, and the jet crossed a busy avenue into a building and a fuel station; 12 people on the ground died.Type: Runway excursionASN record | |
| ArmaviaA320-211 · 6 km SW off Adler/Sochi Airport (AER), Russia | 113 / 113 on board | After first turning back, the crew continued to Sochi at night in poor weather. When the controller ordered a go-around, the stressed captain pushed the nose down during the climbing turn and the jet flew into the Black Sea. Investigators classed it as CFIT.Type: Flight into terrainASN record | |
| Gulf AirA320-212 · 2 km N off Bahrain International Airport (BAH), Bahrain | 143 / 143 on board | Too high and fast on approach to Bahrain at night, the crew flew a low orbit near the runway, then went around. Likely disoriented, the captain pushed the nose down and the jet flew into the shallow sea despite repeated terrain warnings.Type: Loss of control in flightASN record | |
| LufthansaA320-211 · Warszawa-Okecie Airport (WAW), Poland | 2 / 70 on board | Landing in heavy rain with windshear reported, the jet touched down long on one main gear, so spoilers, reversers and brakes came on late; the pilot steered off near the runway end into an embankment and fire broke out. Crew decisions and braking logic were cited.Type: Runway excursionASN record | |
| Air InterA320-111 · 19,5 km SW of Strasbourg-Entzheim Airport (SXB), France | 87 / 96 on board | Descending at night toward Strasbourg, the jet went down at about 3,300 ft/min instead of on a 3.3-degree path, most likely through a vertical-mode mix-up, and hit a ridge near Mont Sainte-Odile. Poor crew cross-checks and no GPWS were cited.Type: Flight into terrainASN record | |
| Indian AirlinesA320-231 · 0,7 km W of Bangalore-Hindustan Airport (BLR), India | 92 / 146 on board | On a visual approach the jet was left in idle open-descent mode and sank well below the profile. The crew did not add thrust despite height callouts, and it hit a golf course short of the runway and then an embankment. Why the mode engaged is unknown.Type: Landed short or longASN record |
Listed but not counted
These events did not happen on regular passenger flights or were caused by a crime or a deliberate act, which says little about the aircraft design.
| Date | Flight | Killed | Why not counted |
|---|---|---|---|
| Daallo Airlines, lsf Hermes Airlines D3159A321-111 · near Mogadishu International Airport (MGQ), Somalia | 1 / 81 on board | Unlawful interference (sabotage, hijacking or shoot-down). About 15 minutes out of Mogadishu at roughly 12,000 ft, a bomb hidden in a laptop exploded near seat 16F, blowing a hole in the fuselage. The passenger carrying it fell out and died; the A321 returned and landed safely.Type: SecurityASN record | |
| MetrojetA321-231 · ca 50 km SE of Hasna, North Sinai, Egypt | 224 / 224 on board | Unlawful interference (sabotage, hijacking or shoot-down). Climbing through about 31,000 ft out of Sharm el-Sheikh, the A321 broke up after a homemade bomb exploded on board; wreckage spread over more than 13 km of north Sinai.Type: SecurityASN record | |
| Germanwings 4U9525A320-211 · Prads-Haute-Bléone, France | 150 / 150 on board | Deliberate act by a crew member. The co-pilot locked the captain out of the cockpit and deliberately flew the A320 into the French Alps; all 150 people on board died.Type: SecurityASN record | |
| XL Airways Germany, lsf Air New ZealandA320-232 · 5 km E off Canet-Plage, France | 7 / 7 on board | Test flight. Acceptance check flight before the jet's return to its owner. During an unplanned low-altitude test of the stall protections, the angle-of-attack sensors were blocked by ice from water rinsing days before; the crew lost control and it hit the sea.Type: Loss of control in flightASN record | |
| Royal Jordanian AirlinesA320 · Amman-Queen Alia International Airport (AMM), Jordan | 1 / 96 on board | Unlawful interference (sabotage, hijacking or shoot-down). Hijacking. A Syrian passenger with an old pistol and a grenade demanded to go to Europe; after he fired shots and pulled the pin, an air marshal killed him. The grenade went off under a seat, lightly hurting 15 people, and the jet returned to Amman.Type: SecurityASN record | |
| Air France, opf Air Charter International AF296QA320-111 · Mulhouse-Habsheim Airport, France | 3 / 136 on board | Test flight. The new A320 was making a low, slow pass with passengers at an air show. It sank to about 30 feet, below nearby trees, and go-around power came too late; it mushed into the forest past the runway and burned. Investigators cited the low height and slow speed.Type: Flight into terrainASN record |
The A320 family is one of the safest ways to fly. It has flown about 235 million passenger flights since 1988, more than any other airliner in our data, and 11 fatal accidents count against it. Most of those were traced to crew decisions, runways or weather, not to a fault in the aircraft. The real catch is that a few crashes happened when the automation changed mode and the pilots lost track of it.
What it is and where you fly on it
Airbus first flew the A320 in 1987 and Air France put it into service in 1988. The family now runs from the small A318 through the A319 and A320 to the stretched A321, and the re-engined neo versions (A319neo, A320neo, A321neo). About 12,400 have been built and about 11,000 are in service. If you fly short-haul with easyJet, Wizz Air, IndiGo, American, Lufthansa or most low-cost carriers in Asia and Latin America, you have probably flown one.
Design features that matter for safety
The A320 was the first airliner with digital Fly-by-wireA flight control system in which the pilot's inputs go to computers, which then move the control surfaces. Many such systems also stop unsafe manoeuvres.More in the glossary and full flight envelope protection. In "normal law" the computers will not let the aircraft stall or overbank. That changed accident patterns: classic loss-of-control crashes became rare, and the remaining ones mostly began when a fault pushed the system into "alternate law" and the protections went away.
Indonesia AirAsia 8501 in 2014 is the clearest case. A cracked solder joint in the rudder travel limiter kept raising alerts. The crew reset the flight computers' circuit breakers, the autopilot dropped out, the system went into alternate law and the aircraft stalled into the Java Sea. All 162 on board died.
The neo engines are the CFM LEAP-1A or Pratt & Whitney PW1100G. Since 2023, a manufacturing flaw in powder-metal parts of the Pratt engine has forced many A320neos to be grounded for inspections. That is a cost and reliability problem for airlines; it has not caused a fatal accident.
The fatal record
Counted accidents include Indian Airlines at Bangalore in 1990 (92 of 146), where the aircraft descended in idle thrust on short final, and Air Inter near Strasbourg in 1992 (87 of 96), where investigators said the design of the vertical-mode controls may have contributed. Others were Gulf Air off Bahrain in 2000 (143), Armavia off Sochi in 2006 (113), TAM 3054 at São Paulo-Congonhas in 2007 (187, the deadliest), Airblue 202 near Islamabad in 2010 (152) and PIA 8303 at Karachi in 2020 (97 of 99), where the crew first touched down with the gear up and both engines failed on the go-around. EgyptAir 804 in 2016 (66) counts because investigators never agreed on a cause.
Some counted events are small: a Lufthansa A320 that Runway excursionWhen an aircraft leaves the runway surface during take-off or landing, either off the end (an overrun) or off the side (a veer-off).More in the glossary at Warsaw in 1993 (2 of 70 died) or a TACA A320 that overran at Tegucigalpa in 2008 (3 of 135 on board died) adds very little, because our methodology weights each accident by the share of people on board who died.
We leave out Germanwings 9525 in 2015 (150 deaths), which the French BEA found the co-pilot caused on purpose, the bombing of Metrojet 9268 over Sinai in 2015 (224) and two smaller hijacking or bomb events. Two non-passenger flights are also out: the 1988 Habsheim air show crash and a 2008 test flight off Perpignan.
How to tell if you are on one
Flight apps show the ICAO code: A318, A319, A320 and A321 for the original models, and A19N, A20N and A21N for the neo. The A321XLR also shows as A21N. All of them have six seats per row with a single aisle.
On this family the airline is the thing to check. The aircraft is the same at a top European carrier and at an operator with a weak record. In the Gulf Air and PIA crashes, investigators named failures in the airline's training or safety oversight. At Airblue, the captain ignored 21 terrain warnings. None of the three was a fault in the jet.
Questions people ask
Is the A320 safer than the Boeing 737?
Per flight, the A320 family has a better record than the 737 NG and clearly better than the 737 MAX, which had two fatal crashes in its first two years. The gap between the A320 and the 737 NG is small, though, and the airline you fly with matters more than which of the two you board.
Is the A321neo safe?
Yes. The neo versions (A319neo, A320neo, A321neo and the long-range A321XLR) have had no fatal accident up to 7 October 2026. They share the cockpit, Fly-by-wireA flight control system in which the pilot's inputs go to computers, which then move the control surfaces. Many such systems also stop unsafe manoeuvres.More in the glossary system and envelope protection of the older models, with new engines and wingtip devices.
How many A320s have crashed?
Up to 7 October 2026, we list 17 fatal events on A320-family aircraft. Eleven were passenger-flight accidents that count in our score. The rest were two test or demonstration flights, a pilot's deliberate crash (Germanwings 9525) and three bombings or hijackings, including Metrojet 9268 over Sinai in 2015. Two passengers who fell on the stairs while leaving a parked aircraft are not counted or listed, because those deaths were not related to the aircraft.
What does fly-by-wire mean for passengers?
The pilot's sidestick sends commands to computers, which move the control surfaces. In normal operation the computers will not let the aircraft stall, bank too far or overstress its structure. Indonesia AirAsia 8501 crashed in 2014 after a fault dropped the system into a degraded mode without those protections and the crew did not recover.
Sources
- 1.ASN record: Indonesia AirAsia flight QZ8501, Karimata Strait, 28 December 2014 (opens in a new tab) · Aviation Safety Network
- 2.ASN record: TAM flight JJ3054, São Paulo-Congonhas, 17 July 2007 (opens in a new tab) · Aviation Safety Network
- 3.ASN record: Pakistan International Airlines A320, Karachi, 22 May 2020 (opens in a new tab) · Aviation Safety Network
- 4.ASN record: Air Inter A320, near Strasbourg, 20 January 1992 (opens in a new tab) · Aviation Safety Network
- 5.ASN record: Germanwings flight 4U9525, Prads-Haute-Bléone, 24 March 2015 (opens in a new tab) · Aviation Safety Network
- 6.SafetyScorer exposure model: OpenSky Network flights 2019-2022, World Bank departures, fleet model (opens in a new tab)Passenger departures 1988 to 7 October 2026. 2019-2022: OpenSky flights by passenger airlines, re-weighted to World Bank departures country by country. Other years: fleet model (deliveries with almost no retirements yet, about 1,669 departures per aircraft per year, calibrated on OpenSky 2019). Uncertainty roughly ±25%.