People on board
The card ticks about 200 deaths a year, the recent five-year mean. In 2025 the onboard count was 394. Both figures are doing different work.
People think of a plane crash as a rare and total event, and then they treat every year as if it were that crash. The industry's own file is calmer, and lumpier, than the picture.
What is being counted
The International Air Transport Association's safety report counts accidents in commercial passenger and cargo flying, on aircraft with a maximum take-off weight of at least 5,700 kilograms. The fatality line used here is people on board. In the 2025 report, onboard fatalities were 72 in 2023, 244 in 2024 and 394 in 2025. The five-year average for 2021 to 2025 is 198. The card ticks 200. The second line is 2025's 394.
A mean is what a counter needs if it is going to move smoothly. A year is what a crash does to the mean. One or two accidents can move the onboard toll by hundreds of people, which is why the second line is allowed to sit far from the rate. Citing 200 as "last year" would be the old mistake, the decorative figure. Citing 394 as the long-run rate would be the other one.
What is not included
General aviation, the small aircraft that are not this commercial file, kills more people in a quiet year than this card does. Military flying is not here either. The hot-air balloon card this one replaced was a guess of 8 deaths a year with no global series behind it. Balloons remain real, and a single sightseeing fire can exceed a quiet year. They are no longer asked to stand in for aviation.
Road traffic, on the accident column, is 1.2 million deaths a year. Set beside that, a few hundred people on board is the availability lesson the shark card is also for. The file exists because the events are few enough, and public enough, to be listed.