Aviation accidents killed 116 people in 2025 across EU territory or on EU-registered aircraft, up from 91 deaths in 2024, according to the Annual Safety Review published jointly by the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) and Eurostat, the EU's statistical office.

The rise is driven almost entirely by non-commercial flying. Fixed-wing powered aircraft accidents accounted for 79 of the fatalities, while helicopters and sailplanes recorded 18 deaths each. One person died in a balloon accident.

Of the 116 victims, 109 were flying privately — a category that covers general aviation and executive or business aviation. The single largest accident involving an EU-linked aircraft in 2025 was the crash of a Malta-registered Dassault Falcon 50 near Ankara, Turkey, in December 2025. The jet was carrying an official Libyan delegation. Eight people died, including the head of the Libyan army.

Within EU territory and airspace, France registered the highest number of non-commercial aviation deaths in 2025 with 28 victims. Germany followed with 12, and Romania and Slovakia recorded six each.

Commercial aviation, by contrast, accounted for four fatalities in 2025. The sector recorded three deaths in 2024 and none in 2023 — a sequence that keeps scheduled and charter operations at historically low levels even as the 2025 figure ticks upward.

A further three people died in specialized aerial operations, a category that includes crop-spraying, inspection flights and aerial photography.

EASA cautions against reading too much comfort into the low commercial numbers. A single major accident can dramatically alter the picture, the report warns. The most recent year in which commercial operations accounted for the majority of aviation deaths in the EU was 2015, when the pilot of Eurowings flight 9525 deliberately flew the aircraft into the French Alps.

The injury data points in the opposite direction from the fatality figures. A total of 143 people were injured in aviation operations in 2025, a marked decrease from 215 in 2024. Airplane operations accounted for 93 of the injuries, followed by balloons with 19 and sailplanes with 17. Helicopter operations injured 12 people, and two injury cases involved unmanned aircraft systems.

The 2025 figures confirm the structural divide that has defined European safety statistics for a decade: airline passengers face vanishingly small risk, while private and sport flying concentrates the overwhelming share of fatalities. EASA and Eurostat will continue to track whether the non-commercial death toll, now at 109 of 116 victims, stabilizes or continues its year-on-year climb in the 2026 review.