Airbus · Wide-body jet
Airbus A340
Is the Airbus A340 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 no fatal accidents counted in about 3.3 million passenger flights.
How the score is built
- Fatal passenger accidents
- 0 in 3.3 million flights
No fatal accident on a passenger flight in the data (ASN database to 7 October 2026).
- Full-loss equivalents
- 0
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
- 3.3 million
Estimated passenger departures. Passenger departures 1993 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 a median passenger service life of about 15 years, about 637 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: 52%.
- Last fatal passenger accident
- None
No counted fatal accident.
- Hull losses
- 7
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 A340 carries about the same risk of death as the activities near it below.
- One flight on the Airbus A340This aircraft1 in 51 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
No fatal accident on a passenger flight counts toward this score.
The Airbus A340 has one of the cleanest records of any widebody. Up to 7 October 2026, in about 3.3 million passenger flights since 1993, no A340 accident has killed anyone on board. Seven have been Hull lossAn accident in which an aircraft is destroyed or damaged beyond economic repair. People may or may not be hurt.More in the glossary, two of them in 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 that everyone survived. The catch is that it is now rare, and the remaining fleet is old.
What the A340 is
The A340 is the four-engined sister of the A330. Both first flew in the early 1990s with the same wing, fuselage and cockpit. The A340-200 and -300 use CFM56 engines; the longer A340-500 and -600 of 2002 got Rolls-Royce Trent 500s and could fly some of the longest routes in the world. Airbus built 377 before production ended in 2011.
Like the A320 and A330, it has 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 controls with envelope protection, which stops the pilot from stalling the aircraft or overstressing it in normal law. Four engines made it independent of the rules that once kept twin jets close to diversion airports. When twins were cleared for long ocean crossings, airlines moved to the more efficient 777, A330 and later the A350.
Where you can still fly on one
About 60 remain in service. Lufthansa has kept some A340s on long-haul routes from Germany while new A350s and 787s arrive. Mahan Air in Iran flies A340s without manufacturer support because of US sanctions; one of its A340-600s was damaged on the ground at Mashhad during the 2026 strikes. The rest fly with charter and wet-lease operators and as government transports. Air France, Iberia, Virgin Atlantic, Emirates and South African Airways were among the big operators that retired theirs.
What the record contains
The Aviation Safety Network lists seven Hull lossAn accident in which an aircraft is destroyed or damaged beyond economic repair. People may or may not be hurt.More in the glossary, none fatal:
- 2 August 2005, Air France 358, Toronto: the A340-300 landed long on a wet runway in a thunderstorm, ran into a ravine and burned. All 309 people got out.
- 9 November 2007, Iberia 6463, Quito: the A340-600 touched down on a wet runway with poor braking and overran. All 359 survived.
- 15 November 2007, Toulouse: a new A340-600 for Etihad rolled forward during a high-power engine test with no chocks under its wheels and hit a concrete wall. Five people were hurt; it never entered service.
- Three aircraft were lost on the ground: a fire at Paris Charles de Gaulle in 1994 after maintenance, the Tamil Tiger attack on Colombo airport in 2001, and a fire in a tow tug at Frankfurt in 2018.
- An Iranian government A340 operated by Meraj Airlines was destroyed in March 2026 during the war with the US and Israel.
The A340-500 and -600 have long fuselages that can strike the tail on take-off if the crew enters the wrong weight. On 20 March 2009 an Emirates A340-500 at Melbourne dragged its tail along the runway and hit lights and an aerial beyond its end before it climbed away. The crew had entered a take-off weight 100 tonnes too low. It landed back safely with no injuries.
How a type with no deaths is scored
A clean record over 3.3 million flights is good evidence, but it is not proof that the risk is zero. Our methodology starts each type from the average for its design generation and moves it towards the type's own record as flights add up. The A340 scores well, but not as if it were perfect.
How to tell if you are on one
Flight trackers show A342 or A343 for the shorter models and A345 or A346 for the long-range ones. Four engines under the wing are the giveaway; the only other four-engined passenger jets you are likely to meet are the Boeing 747 and the A380, both much bigger with an upper deck.
Questions people ask
Has an Airbus A340 ever crashed?
No A340 accident has killed anyone on board up to 7 October 2026. Seven have been Hull lossAn accident in which an aircraft is destroyed or damaged beyond economic repair. People may or may not be hurt.More in the glossary, including Air France 358, which overran at Toronto in 2005 and burned, and an Iberia A340-600 that overran at Quito in 2007. Everyone on both flights survived.
Why does the A340 have four engines?
When Airbus designed it in the late 1980s, rules limited how far a twin-engined airliner could fly from the nearest airport. Four engines let the A340 fly long routes over oceans and remote areas without those limits. Once twins such as the 777 and the A330 won approval for long overwater flights, the four-engine design became too costly to run.
Which airlines still fly the A340?
Lufthansa has kept some A340s on long-haul routes, and Mahan Air in Iran flies the type under sanctions. A few charter, wet-lease and government operators fly the rest. About 60 of the 377 built remain in service.
Is the A340 the same as the A330?
They were developed together and share the wing, fuselage, cockpit and 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 controls, so pilots can fly both on one type rating. The A340 has four smaller engines instead of two large ones. We score them separately.
Sources
- 1.ASN record: Air France flight 358, Toronto, 2 August 2005 (opens in a new tab) · Aviation Safety Network
- 2.ASN record: Iberia flight 6463, Quito, 9 November 2007 (opens in a new tab) · Aviation Safety Network
- 3.ASN record: Airbus A340-600 ground test accident, Toulouse, 15 November 2007 (opens in a new tab) · Aviation Safety Network
- 4.ASN record: Emirates A340-500 tailstrike, Melbourne, 20 March 2009 (opens in a new tab) · Aviation Safety Network
- 5.Crowdsourced air traffic data from the OpenSky Network 2019-2022 (opens in a new tab) · OpenSky Network (Zenodo)
- 6.SafetyScorer exposure model: OpenSky Network flights 2019-2022, World Bank departures, fleet model (opens in a new tab)Passenger departures 1993 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 a median passenger service life of about 15 years, about 637 departures per aircraft per year, calibrated on OpenSky 2019). Uncertainty roughly ±25%.