Embraer ERJ 135/140/145

The Embraer ERJ 135/140/145 has not had a fatal accident on board in nearly 30 years of passenger service. It is one of the few airliner families with tens of millions of flights and no deaths, so if you are booked on one, the aircraft type is not the thing to worry about.

Where you still fly on an ERJ

Embraer built about 1,100 of these 37- to 50-seat jets between the mid-1990s and the end of production, and around 450 remain in service. The ERJ was the backbone of the 1990s and 2000s regional jet boom in the United States, flying for the regional partners of Continental, American and others. Many have since been parked or replaced by larger E175s, but in the US the type still appears on short United Express and American Eagle routes, flown by contract carriers such as CommuteAir and Piedmont.

Outside the US, second-hand ERJs fly with smaller regional and charter airlines in Europe, Latin America and Africa. The same airframe is also the base of the Legacy 600 business jet and several military versions.

Why the record is so clean

Part of the answer is design. The ERJ is a twin-engined jet with rear-mounted Rolls-Royce AE 3007 engines and a glass cockpit, from the same generation as the 737 NG and the CRJ. It does not have fly-by-wireFly-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, but it has no known design flaw that has caused a fatal accident.

The bigger part is where it has flown. Most ERJ flights took place in the US and Europe, between airports with long runways, radar control and instrument landing systems, under the rules that apply to mainline airlines. Regional jets also cruise above most icing and turbulence, unlike turboprops on the same routes.

Luck plays a role too. The ERJ has had about 11 hull lossesHull 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 runway excursionsRunway 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 and landing accidents, and in some of them a few metres or seconds made the difference. A spotless record over 24 million flights is strong evidence that the type is safe, but it does not mean the risk is zero. Our methodology explains how we handle families with no fatal events: their score starts from the average of their technology generation and moves up as clean flights add up.

The Gol 1907 collision

The most famous accident involving this airframe was not an airline flight. On 29 September 2006, a new Embraer Legacy 600 business jet, built on the ERJ 135, collided with Gol flight 1907, a Boeing 737-800, over the Amazon. All 154 people on the 737 died. The damaged Legacy landed safely and its seven occupants survived. The event counts on the 737 NG page, not here.

How to tell if you are on one

Flight trackers show the ERJ as E135 (ERJ 135 and ERJ 140), E145 or E45X (the ERJ 145XR). On board, the cabin has one seat on one side of the aisle and two on the other, and the engines sit at the tail, behind the last row.

Do not confuse it with the E-Jet (E170 to E195), Embraer's larger family with two seats on each side; that aircraft has its own page. If you are tall or travel with a full-size cabin bag, expect a cramped cabin and a valet-checked bag. Neither is a safety issue.