Fokker · Regional jet
Fokker 70
Is the Fokker 70 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 1.4 million passenger flights.
How the score is built
- Fatal passenger accidents
- 0 in 1.4 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
- 1.4 million
Estimated passenger departures. Passenger departures 1994 to 7 October 2026 from a fleet model: deliveries with a median passenger service life of about 22 years and about 1,366 departures per aircraft per year (average of similar types in OpenSky). OpenSky sees too few of these aircraft. Uncertainty roughly ±50%.
- Technology generation
- Gen 3 jet (glass cockpit and flight management system)
Small fleets are pulled toward the record of their generation: 0.17 full-loss equivalents per million flights over 419 million flights. Weight of this family's own record: 31%.
- Last fatal passenger accident
- None
No counted fatal accident.
- Hull losses
- 0
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 Fokker 70 carries about the same risk of death as the activities near it below.
- An hour's walk1 in 14 million
- One flight on the Fokker 70This aircraft1 in 8.6 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 Fokker 70 has a clean fatal record. Up to 7 October 2026, in about 1.4 million passenger flights since 1994, no one has died in a Fokker 70 accident and none of the 48 built has 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. The fleet is small and the flight count is an estimate, so this is good evidence rather than proof. Only about 10 still fly.
What the Fokker 70 is
The Fokker 70 is a shortened Fokker 100 for about 80 passengers. It first flew in 1993 and entered service in 1994. It kept the 100's T-tail, two rear-mounted Rolls-Royce Tay engines, glass cockpit and conventional flight controls. Fokker went bankrupt in 1996, and production ended with only 48 aircraft, some of them finished as corporate and government jets.
Who flies it
KLM Cityhopper had the largest fleet and flew it on European routes from Amsterdam for about two decades; Austrian Airlines used it out of Vienna. Both retired it around 2017. The remaining aircraft are mostly in the southern Pacific: Air Niugini in Papua New Guinea flies it into highland airports, and Alliance Airlines in Australia has used it for charter and regional flights. With Fokker gone, support comes from specialist firms and parts from retired aircraft.
The events that did happen
The Aviation Safety Network lists only a few Fokker 70 accidents, none fatal. Two are worth knowing:
- 5 January 2004, Austrian Airlines 111, near Munich: after a long descent in moderate icing at low thrust, ice built up on the low-pressure compressor rotors of both engines. Loose ice panels inside the engines then blocked the airflow, and both engines gave little thrust, without any warning in the cockpit, until the crew needed power on the approach. The aircraft touched down in a snow-covered field about 2.5 nautical miles short of the runway. All 32 people left it without help. German investigators traced the cause to the engines' ice impact panels, whose bonded joints had failed.
- 20 February 2023, Air Niugini, Port Moresby: after a diversion, the crew had not reset the landing elevation for the pressurisation system and did not finish the manual procedure. Cabin pressure changed fast during a go-around, and 22 people were hurt, four seriously. Investigators pointed to last-minute crew roster changes and stress, not to a fault in the aircraft.
A third, in 1997, was a bus hitting the wing of a KLM Cityhopper aircraft on the ground.
How a type with no deaths is scored
A clean record over 1.4 million flights says the Fokker 70 has not shown a weakness, but a small fleet needs a long time to prove much. Our methodology starts each type from the average of its design generation and moves it towards its own history as flights add up. The Fokker 70 therefore scores well without being treated as risk-free. Its bigger sibling, the Fokker 100, has 5 counted fatal accidents in about three times as many flights, two of them take-offs with ice on the wings, a reminder that the wing on this family needs proper de-icing in winter.
How to tell if you are on one
Flight trackers show F70 (the Fokker 100 shows F100). You will see two engines at the back beside a T-tail and five seats across with one aisle. The Fokker 70 is about 4.6 m shorter than the 100, which is hard to spot from the gate, so the tracker code is the easier check.
Questions people ask
Has a Fokker 70 ever crashed?
No Fokker 70 has had a fatal accident, and none has 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, up to 7 October 2026. The closest call was an Austrian Airlines flight in January 2004 that lost thrust on both engines in icing and landed in a snowy field near Munich. All 32 people on board got out through the front door.
Is the Fokker 70 the same as the Fokker 100?
It is a shortened Fokker 100, with about 80 seats instead of 100, the same Rolls-Royce Tay engines, cockpit and systems. Fokker built it from 1993 until the company went bankrupt in 1996, so only 48 were made. It has its own record in our data.
Which airlines still fly the Fokker 70?
About 10 remain in service. Air Niugini in Papua New Guinea and Alliance Airlines in Australia have been the last notable operators. KLM Cityhopper, which flew the largest fleet on European routes from Amsterdam, and Austrian Airlines retired theirs around 2017.
Is an old Fokker 70 still safe to fly?
The record says the airframe holds up, but support is thin: Fokker no longer exists and parts come from specialist firms and retired aircraft. On a type this rare, the airline's maintenance and training matter more than the design, as the 2023 Air Niugini pressurisation incident showed.
Sources
- 1.ASN record: Austrian Airlines flight 111, forced landing near Munich, 5 January 2004 (opens in a new tab) · Aviation Safety Network
- 2.ASN record: Air Niugini Fokker 70 cabin pressure injuries, Port Moresby, 20 February 2023 (opens in a new tab) · Aviation Safety Network
- 3.World Bank: Air transport, registered carrier departures worldwide (IS.AIR.DPRT) (opens in a new tab) · World Bank
- 4.SafetyScorer fleet model (World Bank departures, OpenSky averages) (opens in a new tab)Passenger departures 1994 to 7 October 2026 from a fleet model: deliveries with a median passenger service life of about 22 years and about 1,366 departures per aircraft per year (average of similar types in OpenSky). OpenSky sees too few of these aircraft. Uncertainty roughly ±50%.