AIRLINES → RANK #8

Cathay Pacific

STEADY

No fatal accident since the 1970s across a dense Asia-Pacific network.

SOURCE: AVIATION SAFETY NETWORK (COMPILED) · AVIATION SAFETY NETWORK (opens in a new window) · checked 2026-07-09
Years without fatal accident
54 and counting
Last fatal accident
1972
Founded
1946
Fleet size
~180
Home country
Hong Kong SAR China
IATA / ICAO
CX / CPA
THE FULL PICTURE

The 1972 loss was a bombing — a criminal act our rule would normally exclude. We count it anyway; the stricter reading only makes the record look worse than it is.

READ THE RECORD → (opens in a new window)
WHY THIS IS REASSURING

At this level of safety, the gap between major airlines is statistically negligible. Flying Cathay Pacific — or any major scheduled carrier — you would need to fly every day for over 25,000 years to statistically expect a fatal accident.

SOURCE: MIT / ARNOLD BARNETT · METHODOLOGY →
WHAT THIS NUMBER DOESN'T TELL YOU

This figure counts years since a fatal accident, not flights — Cathay Pacific has no sourced per-airline flight total, so it can't say how many trips sit behind the record. One airline's own history, however long or short, is a far smaller sample than the worldwide figure this site already publishes: 99.999993% of boardings end safely — 1 death per 13,700,000 boardings, worldwide, 2018–2022 (MIT / ARNOLD BARNETT, 2024).

That's the whole record, checked 2026-07-09. Reading it again tonight won't change what's in it.

EXAMPLE CATHAY PACIFIC FLIGHTS ON THIS SITE

CX 251 HKG → LHR · 777-300ER
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