2025: a reckoning year for global air safety!

By Captain Bassani - ATPL/B-727/DC-10/B-767 - Former Air Accident Inspector SIA PT. captbassani@gmail.com - Dec/2025 - https://www.personalflyer.com.br

In 2025, the global aviation system experienced a true “reckoning year” for safety, with high‑profile accidents across airline, cargo, regional, and general aviation operations exposing structural vulnerabilities, oversight gaps, and latent operational risks.

Preliminary findings by agencies such as the NTSB (U.S.), ATSB (Australia), BEA (France), the TSB (Canada), and several Asian authorities highlight events involving structural failure, midair collisions, loss of control, runway excursions, and hazards linked to GNSS interference and complex operating environments.​

In the United States, the NTSB has pointed to a troubling convergence of factors: structural fatigue in aging aircraft, erosion of proficiency in certain airline operations, and coordination challenges among operators, manufacturers, and regulators as fleets and maintenance chains become more complex and globally distributed.

The FAA responded with emergency Airworthiness Directives, reinforcement of flight data monitoring and FOQA programs, and renewed emphasis on preventing midair collisions, runway incursions, and loss of control in flight.​

Across Europe, EASA used its safety conferences and publications to warn against complacency after years of strong safety performance, underscoring ongoing risks in stabilized approaches, operations into demanding aerodromes, crew fatigue, and the integration of new technologies such as advanced automation and early AI‑enabled tools.

National CAAs, including the UK CAA and others, expanded targeted campaigns for general aviation, IFR operations with light aircraft, and small‑fleet maintenance, where risk is often underestimated.​

In Asia and Oceania, regulators including JCAB (Japan), CAAC (China), DGCA (India), and ATSB/CASA (Australia) issued safety bulletins emphasizing lessons from recent occurrences involving fatigued crews, severe‑weather operations, and threat‑and‑error management in rapidly growing traffic environments.

These efforts align with ICAO and IATA global safety reports, which call for stronger safety management systems (SMS), just culture, and routine use of occurrence and operational data (ASR, MOR, FOQA, LOSA) as core tools for managing risk.​

Technical organizations such as NASA, through confidential reporting and human‑factors research, and knowledge platforms like SKYbrary, have reinforced with data and case studies that many 2025 events were not “out of the blue,” but rather the realization of known hazards: undetected structural fatigue, declining CRM standards, insufficient training for low‑probability/high‑consequence scenarios, and poorly managed human–machine interfaces.

For professional aviation, the 2025 message is unambiguous: strong historical safety metrics are not enough; structural integrity, crew proficiency, maintenance quality, navigation and interference protection, and SMS governance must be treated as core business priorities, backed by data, independent investigation, and coordinated action among operators, OEMs, and regulators.​

Appreciation message

In a year as intense for aviation as 2025, having you by my side on every post made all the difference.

On behalf of this blog, a sincere thank-you to all aviation professionals who followed, commented on, and reflected alongside each analysis, report, and operational lesson shared throughout 2025. Every time an article was forwarded to colleagues, flight crews, operations staff, maintenance teams, dispatchers, or safety personnel, you helped expand the reach of aeronautical knowledge and directly contributed to the continuous improvement of flight safety.

This space only has real meaning because it is read by those who live aviation every day: pilots, air traffic controllers, maintenance technicians, engineers, dispatchers, safety managers, instructors, and all the other professionals who keep the system running safely. Your trust in reading and sharing the technical content published here is a vote of confidence that is taken very seriously, and it is what drives us to remain focused on consistent, up-to-date material aligned with international best practices.

Looking ahead to 2026

In 2026, the plan is to stay on the same heading, with even more strength: delivering professional material based on reliable sources that supports decision-making, training, and safety culture at every level of operation. May the coming year bring health, safety, smooth operations, and many opportunities for us to learn and grow together—always with the same commitment: turning quality information into safer flights.

Merry Christmas, safe flights, and a very happy New Year to you and your entire team.

Captain Luiz Bassani

References

• NTSB – 2025 accident and incident summaries and preliminary reports, including structural failures, midair collisions, and LOC‑I events.​

• FAA – Airworthiness Directives, safety alerts, and communications on airspace security, GNSS interference, and flight data monitoring programs.​

• EASA – safety conferences and publications addressing complacency, new technologies, and risks in commercial air transport and general aviation.​

• ICAO and IATA – global safety reports and guidance on SMS, just culture, and data‑driven risk management.​

• ATSB/CASA and other regional authorities – bulletins and reports on significant 2025 events in Australia and the wider Asia–Pacific region.​

• SKYbrary and NASA – knowledge bases and research on structural fatigue, CRM, LOC‑I, CFIT, and emerging threats, used here for conceptual framing only.​

• “2025 Became a Reckoning Year for Air Safety”, Aviation International News (AIN), used as thematic context without reproducing any protected text.​

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