The 21 fatalities in U.S.-registered business jet accidents in the first nine months have already exceeded annual totals for all but two periods over the past 15 years. According to preliminary NTSB records, there were 30 fatalities in 2014 and 26 in 2012. To date, there have been no further fatal accidents involving business jets since the end of the third quarter.
Except for 13 people who perished in the crash of a charter jet, the remaining eight fatalities so far this year died in four Part 91 accidents. Between 2004 and 2018, there were five years in which the number of business jet fatalities were in the single digits—five in 2005, two in 2010, seven in 2011, eight in 2016, and three in 2017, according to NTSB data.
Fatalities involving U.S.-registered business turboprops are also climbing, albeit not as steeply as for jets. The five people killed in the October 3 TBM 700 fatal accident has brought the total number of turboprop fatalities to 41 so far this year—all but one person under Part 91 operations. The last year in which fatalities from turboprop crashes exceeded that level was in 2013, when 45 were killed. Over the past 15 years, turboprop fatalities peaked at 53 in 2005. Turboprops have no single-digit fatality years on record for at least 20 years.