last year was the safest in the history of commercial aviation despite the loss of two high profile malaysia airlines flights in which hundreds of people were killed, according to industry experts while more people died in air accidents in 2014 than the  average in recent years, the number of fatal accidents compared  with the total number of flights was a record low, the international air transport association (iata) said the organisations said in a new report that there were 12 fatal accidents in 2014 with 641 fatalities, versus 19 fatal accidents and 517 fatalities per year in the five year period between 2009 and 2013 the downing of mh17, in which 298 people died, was not included in the safety report because it was not technically classed as an accident  malaysia airlines flight mh17 takes off from schipol airport near amsterdam prior to being shot down as it flew over ukraine  'while aviation safety was in the headlines in 2014, the  data show that flying continues to improve its safety  performance,' said tony tyler, iata's director general and chief  executive officer the statistics translate into an accident rate, measured in 'hull  losses' per 1 million flights, of 023, or the equivalent of one  for every 44 million flights iata's 2014 statistics did not include the loss of malaysia  airlines flight mh17, which was shot down by a surface to air  anti aircraft missile in ukraine last june and so not classified  as an accident all 298 people on board were killed 'to the flying public an air tragedy is an air tragedy,  regardless of how it is classified,' said tyler 'in 2014 we saw  a reduction in the number of fatal accidents   and that would be  true even if we were to include mh17 in the total' the other high profile event of 2014, the disappearance of  malaysia airlines flight mh370 on a flight from kuala lumpur to  beijing on march 8, 2014, with 239 passengers and crew, has  become one of the biggest mysteries in the history of aviation an extensive search in the southern indian ocean, where  satellite data showed that the boeing 777 200er ended up after  being diverted from its original flight path, has not found any  sign of the plane an investigation report that was released on  sunday did not reveal anything new australian deputy prime minister warren truss shows a new search area in the indian ocean where rescue crews are continuing to look for any signs of mh370's whereabouts  an australian defence vessel sails through the indian ocean as no trace has yet been found of the missing aircraft  us navy aircrewman karl shinn searches from above for any signs of the missing malaysia airlines plane  the international civil aviation organization (icao), a  united nations body that regulates global aviation, proposed  after mh370 that commercial aircraft report their position every  15 minutes instead of the current norm of 30 40 minutes tyler told reporters at a briefing in hong kong that such a  system would be in place by november 2016 'at the moment there's no technology that can track aircraft  everywhere in the world over time,' he said 'these things don't  happen overnight' new space based technologies might make real time tracking  possible soon, he added 'the promise is to be able to identify aircraft wherever  they are in the world pretty much in real time with no gaps in  coverage,' he said 'it may well be that this is the way we  should go, however that technology won't be available for two or  three years to come' three of last year's 12 plane crashes involved jet aircraft and accounted for the bulk of the deaths in december, an airasia jet carrying 162 people crashed into the java sea in july, an air algerie jet went down in mali during bad weather, killing all 116 aboard the nine other crashes involved turboprop aircraft, including a transasia atr 72 that crashed in july on the penghu island chain in the taiwan strait, killing 58 people another transasia turboprop crashed in february this year, killing more than 40 people the wreckage of airasia qz8501 is removed from a rescue vessel in jakarta, indonesia the plane crashed into the java sea on december 28, killing all 162 on board  the airasia crash was one of three major incidents to rock the aviation industry last year 
last year mh370 mh17 airasia the java sea
last year was the safest in history of commercial aviation, report claims . this was despite disappearance of mh370 and shooting down of mh17 . but mh17 death toll not included in report because it was not an accident . an airasia flight also crashed into the java sea, killing all 162 on board 