The crash of an Asiana Airlines aircraft marks the first fatal accident and only the second serious incident in the 18-year life of Boeing’s twin-engined 777 – one of the most popular passenger jets in the world today.
It is also the first fatal crash of a commercial airliner in the US for almost five years and comes at a time when fatal crashes in the developed world are increasingly rare. Last year was the safest in terms of number of accidents since 1945 – according to the Aviation Safety Network – when commercial aviation was in its infancy and a fraction of the number of flights operated compared with today.
Just what caused the Asiana crash in San Francisco, which left two people dead, will take some time for investigators to establish.