SkyWest Airlines

Is SkyWest Airlines safe?

Yes. SkyWest, the largest regional airline in the US, has gone 35 years without a passenger death in a crash, and in the last 20 years it has not lost an aircraft in flight. We score it 84, level with Delta and above United, its biggest customer.

Most SkyWest passengers do not know they are on SkyWest. It flies about 2,260 flights a day under four brands: United Express (about 940), Delta Connection (680), American Eagle (420) and Alaska (210), according to its 2025 annual report. In 2025 it flew 863,513 flights and carried 46 million people. That volume is what makes its clean record meaningful.

What is SkyWest's accident record?

SkyWest's last fatal accident on a passenger flight was on 1 February 1991 at Los Angeles. A Fairchild Metro on flight 5569 had been cleared onto the runway to wait for take-off at night, and the controller forgot it was there. A USAir 737 landed on top of it, and 34 people died, including all 12 on the Metro. The NTSB blamed tower procedures and FAA oversight. In 1987 a SkyWest Metro collided with a private plane near Salt Lake City, killing everyone on both aircraft; the NTSB found the private plane had entered controlled airspace without clearance.

In the 20 years our rubric looks at, the only SkyWest aircraft 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 never flew. On 17 July 2012 a man wanted for his girlfriend's killing climbed the fence at St. George airport in Utah, started a parked, empty CRJ200, taxied it into a car park and shot himself on board. It was a security failure, not a flight accident, and ICAO rules treat the death as self-inflicted.

We put the accident record at 94. A record with no fatal accident in 20 years and this many flights belongs in the top band; we stop just short of 95 because of the 2012 write-off and because regional flying has more small accidents per flight than mainline.

Incidents in the last few years

SkyWest's long list of incidents is mostly what you would expect from 2,000-plus daily flights with bird strikes, lightning and pressurisation faults. The events that matter more:

• 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: CRJs ran off the runway on landing at Redmond, Oregon, and Houston in 2022 and at Rock Springs, Wyoming, in December 2022; an E175 briefly left the runway at State College in 2023. None caused serious injury.
• Control problems: a CRJ200 had a stabiliser trim runaway near Chicago in December 2025 that made roll control difficult, and a CRJ700 had restricted elevator movement during the flare at Hibbing, Minnesota, in November 2025. Both landed safely.
• Turbulence: five people were hurt near Waco in March 2025 and four near Austin in August 2025. On 16 July 2026, a Delta Connection E175 hit turbulence over Florida and a flight attendant was seriously injured.
• Minot, July 2025: a SkyWest E175 on approach to Minot, North Dakota, had to swerve away from a B-52 the tower had not warned it about. The crew's quick turn is what you want from a pilot.

The FAA proposed $1.2 million in penalties against SkyWest in 2015 over landing-gear and cargo-door inspections. We did not find a newer safety penalty.

What does SkyWest fly?

At the end of 2025, SkyWest had 487 aircraft in scheduled service: 270 Embraer E175s, 36 CRJ900s, 123 CRJ700s (some fitted with 50 seats as CRJ550s) and 58 CRJ200s. The E175 is the newest type and has partial 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; SkyWest added seven new ones in 2025 and has 25 more ordered for 2026 to 2028, some replacing CRJs. The CRJ200 is the oldest and smallest, mostly on short routes to small towns. A separate company, SkyWest Charter, flies 11 CRJ200s on charters under its own certificate; this page does not cover it.

How to fly SkyWest

• The aircraft type tells you more than the brand. An E175 or CRJ900 has two cabins and handles bumps better than a 50-seat CRJ200.
• Small airports are the harder part of the network. Mountain and northern airports close in snow and wind more often than hubs; a cancelled flight there is normal, not a warning sign.
• Keep your belt on when seated. Regional jets cruise lower and through more weather, and turbulence is where SkyWest passengers and crew actually get hurt.

How we scored it

The accident record (94) carries the score. FAA oversight (86) is good, though we could not confirm 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. A mixed fleet with older CRJ200s (72), 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 turbulence injuries (74) and a network full of small and mountain airports (72) bring it to 84.