My Airplane Safety graphic reached over 1,300,000 impressions on Linkedin in one week! As I update this in September 2025, it continues to grow. This piece went viral with 287 reposts, 5,454 reactions and 261 comments to date. It struck a nerve! The history and evolution of airplane safety is a story that needs to be told. View the original post on Linkedin.

The Story Behind This Graphic

Aviation safety has always been an important topic to me. I was finishing up this piece as phase one of a 3-year-long aviation safety data project, when news broke of the terrible D.C. crash. So I prioritized getting this graphic out to show the context and nuances of commercial aviation's safety record. I posted it to the Voronoi app from Visual Capitalist on Jan. 31.

On Sunday, February 2, 2025 I posted it like I always do to my LinkedIn. I like to share what I post to Voronoi on my social media as well. It makes readers aware of the app and the more users the better for all dataviz Creators who contribute.

Now it is a week later and I’m stunned at the overwhelmingly positive response. This topic is incredibly important to the aviation community. From aerspace engineers to pilots. From airline executives to safety analysts. And maybe most critically, to the general flying public. When flying is perceived as unsafe, we need clarity.

Why I Made It (I Wasn’t Paid)

By making this graphic, I wanted readers to know that thousands of people over the years have worked to ensure flying is safe. It took years of studying accidents, developing technology and paying attention to human factors. So many people are working hard today to make aviation even safer. There is so much that goes into even a short flight to get you across to another state.

We stand today (or should I say we soar) on the legacy of so many technological and regulatory milestones. It’s an extremely nuanced study to understand airplane safety. I took up this topic from my personal curiosity and because I just wanted to understand what happens when things go wrong.

It turned out that what is more compelling and important is what has happened because things go right. As the line chart shows, aviation get safer and safer as time goes on.

What’s Next

But accidents still happen. We are going to learn a lot from the recent crashes. We will be safer. Showing this will be an ongoing data visualization project for me. Since this piece opened up so many discussions, I’m going to expand it. The combined experience and aviation expertise of the comments alone will enhance what I’ve done into a much more detailed and potentially interactive chart. I am currently creating a pitch presentation for the Aviation Safety Timeline, an interactive website that dives deep into the history of aviation safety from 1970 to present days. The combined roles of advances in technological, regulatory and human factors has made flying safe, but the history doesn't have a central place to thrive.