Aviation accidents in Australia

203 accidents and incidents are recorded in Australia (1989–2026), with 197 people killed and 56 seriously injured. 49% of the accidents were fatal.

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Takeaways

• Maneuvering is the most common phase of flight (30% of accidents with a recorded phase), but 66% of those were fatal. Maneuvering accidents were fatal 66% of the time.
• Recorded accidents went from 1 in 1989 to 25 in 2025.

Deadliest accidents

1. Aero-Tropics Air Services Flight 675, Queensland (May 7, 2005) · 15 killed
2. 1989 Alice Springs hot air balloon crash, Northern Territory (Aug 13, 1989) · 13 killed
3. 2012 Queensland DH.84 Dragon crash, Australia (Oct 1, 2012) · 6 killed
4. 2017 Sydney Seaplanes DHC-2 crash, Cowan (Dec 31, 2017) · 6 killed
5. Raytheon B200, Melbourne, AU (Feb 20, 2017) · 5 killed
6. Cessna 404, Lockhart River, AU (Mar 11, 2020) · 5 killed
7. Piper PA-32R, Moree, AU (Mar 30, 2011) · 4 killed
8. Cessna 210H, Darwin Aerodrome, Australia, AU (Apr 1, 2013) · 4 killed
9. Piper PA28, Barwon Heads, Australia, AU (Jan 29, 2016) · 4 killed
10. Piper PA44, Mangalore, AU (Feb 19, 2020) · 4 killed

By year

By phase of flight

By type of operation

Aircraft makers

Aircraft models

Other countries

• United States · 76,200 accidents
• Brazil · 327 accidents
• Mexico · 154 accidents
• Colombia · 147 accidents
• Canada · 133 accidents
• France · 127 accidents
• United Kingdom · 109 accidents
• Venezuela · 100 accidents
• Russia · 84 accidents
• Argentina · 82 accidents

These are counts of recorded accidents, not risk rates: the data has no flight hours, so a place or aircraft near the top mostly reflects how much flying happens there. Source: NTSB aviation accident database (US government, public domain), plus notable international accidents from Wikidata and Wikipedia. US-heavy; the NTSB only codes phase and cause for accidents from 2008 on, so those tables leave out earlier years.