Delta Air Lines

Is Delta safe?

Yes. Delta is the strongest of the three big US network airlines on our scores. It flies about 1,000 mainline jets and 325 regional aircraft, and no passenger on a Delta mainline flight has died in an accident since July 1996. We score it 84, ahead of United and American. The deductions come from the regional side and from a fleet older than most foreign rivals'.

When did Delta last have a fatal crash?

On the mainline: 6 July 1996. A fan hub in the left engine of an MD-88 at Pensacola broke apart at the start of the take-off roll, and debris entered the cabin, killing two passengers. Before that, the deadliest Delta crash was Flight 191 at Dallas/Fort Worth in 1985, when a microburst brought down an L-1011. That crash led to the wind-shear radar and training now standard at US airports.

On Delta Connection: 27 August 2006. Comair 5191, a CRJ100 marketed as Delta Connection, lined up on the wrong, much shorter runway at Lexington, Kentucky, in the dark and ran off the end. 49 of the 50 people on board died. Comair was then a Delta subsidiary.

Delta also absorbed Northwest Airlines in 2008, and with it Northwest's history, including Flight 255 at Detroit in 1987, which killed 154 of 155 people on board. None of these events falls in our 20-year window.

The mainline has still lost aircraft without deaths. On 5 March 2015, Delta 1086, an MD-88 from Atlanta, slid off the left side of a snowy runway at LaGuardia, broke through the perimeter fence and stopped with its nose on the embankment above Flushing Bay. 29 passengers had minor injuries and the aircraft was written offHull 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 Toronto rollover

The most serious recent event was on the regional side. On 17 February 2025, Delta Connection 4819, a Bombardier CRJ900 operated by Endeavor Air, landed at Toronto Pearson with a crosswind gusting to 35 knots. The right main landing gear side-stay broke on touchdown, the right wing separated and the aircraft slid to a stop upside down. All 76 passengers and four crew survived, which says a lot about seat certification and the cabin crew. 21 people were hurt.

Canada's Transportation Safety Board (TSB) said in its preliminary report that the aircraft touched down with a high rate of descent. In February 2026 it said metallurgical tests on the wing and gear were still under way. Until the final report is out, the question is whether a hard landing alone broke the gear or whether design or maintenance played a part. Endeavor is wholly owned by Delta, but like all regional partners it is scored on its own page: see Endeavor Air.

Recent mainline incidents

• July 2025, turbulence: DL56, an A330-900 from Salt Lake City to Amsterdam, hit severe turbulence over Wyoming and diverted to Minneapolis; 25 people went to hospital.
• March 2026, engine failure: DL104, an A330-300 leaving Sao Paulo, had an engine failure with a visible fire right after take-off and returned to land.
• August 2024, maintenance: a tyre on a 757 under maintenance exploded at Delta's Atlanta base, killing two workers. It did not involve a flight, but it is a workplace safety failure.

None of these involved a crew error of the kind that leads to crashes, and all were handled without passenger deaths.

Old jets, new cabins

Delta's own 10-K shows the trade-off. Its 989 mainline aircraft averaged 14.8 years at the end of 2025. It still flies Airbus A320s and Boeing 767-300ERs averaging 29 years, 757s at 27 and Boeing 717s at 24, kept flying by its large maintenance arm, Delta TechOps. The newer part of the fleet includes Airbus A220s, A321neos, A330-900s and A350-900s, and 100 Boeing 737-10s are on order.

An old aircraft maintained to FAA standards is not a high crash risk. The 717, 757 and 767 all have good records. But it means more mechanical events and diversions, like DL104.

Tips for Delta passengers

• Check whether your flight is Delta Connection. The booking page says "Operated by Endeavor Air DBA Delta Connection", SkyWest or Republic. Those flights use CRJ and Embraer regional jets with up to 76 seats.
• For a newer aircraft, look for the A220, A321neo, A330-900 or A350 in the seat map.
• Keep your seat belt on at cruise. On a US major airline, turbulence is the most likely way a passenger gets hurt.

How we scored it

The accident record (90) and FAA oversight (90) carry the score. Fleet age (66) and a run of incidents since 2024 (76) pull it down. Delta's gap over United and American comes mostly from its accident record: it has had no deaths on a branded flight in the last 20 years.