Malaysia Airlines

Is Malaysia Airlines safe?

Yes, with a heavy past. In one year, 2014, Malaysia Airlines lost two Boeing 777s and 537 people: MH370 vanished over the Indian Ocean and MH17 was shot down over Ukraine. There has been no fatal accident since. The regulator lost its FAA Category 1FAA IASAThe US FAA's check of whether a country's aviation regulator meets ICAO standards. Category 1 means it does; Category 2 means it does not.More in the glossary rating in 2019 and won it back in 2022, and new A330neos and 737-8s are bringing the fleet's average age down to about 10 years. We score it 71.

The two 2014 losses are often lumped together. For safety purposes they are very different events, and we treat them differently.

MH370: why it still counts

On 8 March 2014, MH370, a Boeing 777-200ER flying from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 people on board, signed off with Malaysian air traffic control at 01:19. Two minutes later its transponder went off. Military radar tracked it turning back across the Malay Peninsula and up the Strait of Malacca. Hourly satellite "handshakes" with an Inmarsat ground station then showed that it kept flying for about six hours after it left radar, most likely south into the Indian Ocean.

Pieces of debris washed up on islands and coasts of the western Indian Ocean from 2015, but the main wreckage has never been found. The most recent attempt, by the seabed survey firm Ocean Infinity on a no-find, no-fee contract, covered about 7,571 square kilometres in 28 days between March 2025 and January 2026 and found nothing, Malaysia's Air Accident Investigation Bureau said. No date has been set for a further search.

Malaysia's 2018 safety investigation report could not determine what happened. It did not rule out deliberate action by someone on board, nor a third party. Without a cause, we treat MH370 as an accident of undetermined cause, at full weight, as our aircraft methodology does. It is the main reason the accident record scores 63.

MH17: an attack, not an accident

On 17 July 2014, MH17, another 777, was flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur at 33,000 feet over eastern Ukraine when a surface-to-air missile exploded next to the cockpit. All 298 people on board died. The route was open to civil traffic at that altitude, and many other airlines were using it that day; a Singapore Airlines 777 was close behind.

The Aviation Safety Network files MH17 as unlawful interference, and we do not count it in the accident record. The lesson it left was for the whole industry: airlines and regulators now publish and follow conflict-zone warnings, such as EASA's bulletins, far more strictly than before 2014.

The regulator: down and back up

In November 2019, after an audit found unresolved problems at the Civil Aviation Authority of Malaysia (CAAM), the FAA moved Malaysia to Category 2FAA IASAThe US FAA's check of whether a country's aviation regulator meets ICAO standards. Category 1 means it does; Category 2 means it does not.More in the glossary. That froze new US routes and codeshares for Malaysian airlines. CAAM closed the findings, and the FAA restored Category 1 in October 2022. The FAA's April 2025 list still shows Malaysia in Category 1, and no Malaysian airline is on the EU Air Safety ListEU Air Safety ListThe European Commission's list of airlines banned or restricted from flying in EU airspace because they do not meet international safety standards.More in the glossary.

Malaysia Airlines is an IATA member, which requires an IOSAIOSAThe IATA Operational Safety Audit, an international audit of an airline's safety management and operations. Every IATA member must pass it.More in the glossary audit every two years. Oversight scores 80: an adequate regulator, but one that slipped within the last seven years.

What does Malaysia Airlines fly?

Type	Role
Boeing 737-800	Regional routes; 42 in March 2025, averaging 12.3 years, all due to leave by 2030
Boeing 737-8	Replacing the 737-800s; 14 delivered by September 2025
Airbus A330-200/-300 and A330neo	Medium-haul to Australia, India, the Middle East, North Asia
Airbus A350-900	London and other long-haul routes

The airline said in September 2025 that its average age was about 10 years and that it aims for 7 years and 116 aircraft by 2035. A Malaysia Aviation Group order in January 2025 for 18 737-8s and 12 737-10s completes the narrowbody replacement.

The weak spot: A330 engines

The older A330s have had a run of engine events. On 20 August 2026, an A330-300 on MH89 from Tokyo Narita rejected its take-off at about 30 knots when the left engine lost thrust with flames and smoke; the crew kept the jet on the runway. On 7 September 2026, MH156, an A330-200 from Kuala Lumpur to Jeddah with 186 people on board, declared an emergency over an engine fault and landed in Chennai. In January 2018, MH122 shut down an engine on the way to Kuala Lumpur, an event investigated by Australia's ATSB.

The new A330neos had their own start-up trouble: Malaysia Airlines grounded one in December 2024, days after its first commercial flight to Melbourne, after faults that Rolls-Royce traced to a faulty component. No one was hurt in any of these events, and an engine failure is something crews train for, but the frequency keeps the incidents score at 70.

How to fly Malaysia Airlines safely

• Check who operates your flight. MH numbers in the 3000s in Borneo are usually MASwings turboprops; Firefly uses its own FY code. They are separate airlines.
• Keep your seat belt fastened when seated. The airline's routes cross the tropical thunderstorm belt around the equator, where turbulence builds quickly.

How we scored it

The accident record (63) is the main drag: MH370 is a fatal loss in the last 15 years with no cause, and we count it in full. Oversight (80) reflects the 2019–2022 downgrade, and incidents (70) the A330 engine events. Compare Singapore Airlines, across the causeway, which scores 85.