Airbus · Wide-body jet
Airbus A350
Is the Airbus A350 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 2.8 million passenger flights.
How the score is built
- Fatal passenger accidents
- 0 in 2.8 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
- 2.8 million
Estimated passenger departures. Passenger departures 2015 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 few retirements so far, about 905 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: 48%.
- Last fatal passenger accident
- None
No counted fatal accident.
- Hull losses
- 1
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 A350 carries about the same risk of death as the activities near it below.
- One flight on the Airbus A350This aircraft1 in 47 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 A350 has one of the cleanest records of any widebody: no one on board has died in an accident since Qatar Airways began flying it in January 2015. That is good news but not proof. The A350 has flown only about 2.8 million passenger flights, too few to show that it is safer than the other modern widebodies. Our score therefore draws heavily on the record of its generation, as explained in our methodology.
What the A350 is and where you fly on it
The A350 first flew in 2013 and entered service in 2015. There are two versions: the A350-900, which seats about 300 to 350, and the longer A350-1000, which seats about 350 to 410. About 700 have been built, and nearly all are still flying.
It is a long-haul aircraft. You will find it with Qatar Airways, Singapore Airlines, Cathay Pacific, Lufthansa, Air France, Delta, JAL, Ethiopian, British Airways and Virgin Atlantic, among others. Singapore Airlines uses a special ultra-long-range version for non-stop flights between Singapore and New York, among the longest routes in the world.
Design features that matter for safety
More than half of the A350's structure, including the fuselage and wings, is carbon-fibre composite. It has Airbus 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 with full envelope protection and a cockpit close to the A380's. It flies only with the Rolls-Royce Trent XWB engine. As a twin on long ocean routes, it flies under ETOPS rules that set how far it may be from a diversion airport.
Composite structure raised one question before 2024: how would it behave in a fuel-fed fire? The Haneda accident answered part of it. The fuselage did burn through, but only after everyone had left.
The record so far
No fatal event on an A350 is in our data up to 7 October 2026. The single 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 is the one that matters:
- 2 January 2024, Japan Airlines 516, Sapporo to Tokyo-Haneda. Just after landing on runway 34R, the A350-900 hit a Japan Coast Guard Dash 8 that had entered the runway while carrying supplies for earthquake relief. Both aircraft caught fire. The A350 slid about 1,700 metres before stopping. All 379 people on board evacuated through three of the eight doors, with the cabin crew giving commands without a working public address system. Five of the six crew on the Coast Guard aircraft died.
Those five deaths appear on the Dash 8's page, not here, because no one on the A350 died. Air traffic control records show the Coast Guard aircraft had been told to hold short, and the runway stop-bar lights at that taxiway were out of service. The cause is a runway incursion, not an A350 fault.
Other ASN entries for the A350 are non-fatal: ground collisions while taxiing, a Tail strikeWhen the tail of an aircraft touches the runway during take-off or landing, usually because the nose was raised too far or too early.More in the glossary during a go-around at Toronto in 2024, and turbulence that injured crew and passengers. Turbulence is one of the most common causes of injury on any airliner. Keep your seatbelt fastened whenever you are seated.
How to tell if you are on one
Booking sites and flight apps such as Flightradar24 show the ICAO type code: A359 for the A350-900 and A35K for the A350-1000. On board, the cockpit windows have a black "mask" painted around them, which makes the A350 easy to spot from the gate.
If you can choose, an A350 is as good a long-haul choice as any. But the score difference between modern widebodies is small, and the airline's own record matters more than which one you board.
Questions people ask
Has an Airbus A350 ever crashed?
One A350 has been destroyed: Japan Airlines 516, which hit a Japan Coast Guard aircraft on the runway at Tokyo-Haneda on 2 January 2024 and burned. All 379 people on the A350 got out alive. Five of the six crew on the Coast Guard aircraft died.
Is the A350 safer than the Boeing 787?
Both are modern twin-engine jets with composite structures 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. The A350 has no fatal accident; the 787 had one, Air India 171 in June 2025. Both types have flown only a few million flights, so neither record proves much on its own.
Is a carbon-fibre fuselage safe in a fire?
The Haneda accident was the first real test. The composite fuselage burned through in the end, but it held long enough for everyone to leave through three exits. Cabin crew carried out the evacuation even though the public address system had failed.
What is the difference between the A350-900 and A350-1000?
The -1000 is about 7 metres longer and seats roughly 40 more passengers, with more powerful engines and six-wheel main landing gear bogies. Both share the same cockpit and pilots can fly either.
Sources
- 1.ASN record: Japan Airlines flight JL516 (A350-900), Tokyo-Haneda, 2 January 2024 (opens in a new tab) · Aviation Safety Network
- 2.ASN record: Japan Coast Guard DHC-8 (JA722A), Tokyo-Haneda, 2 January 2024 (opens in a new tab) · Aviation Safety Network
- 3.ASN record: Air France flight AF356 tail strike, Toronto, 21 January 2024 (opens in a new tab) · Aviation Safety Network
- 4.SafetyScorer exposure model: OpenSky Network flights 2019-2022, World Bank departures, fleet model (opens in a new tab)Passenger departures 2015 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 few retirements so far, about 905 departures per aircraft per year, calibrated on OpenSky 2019). Uncertainty roughly ±25%.