The year 2014 may well be remembered in the history of global aviation as the year of terrible air travel disasters, but it still remained as a relatively safe year. Despite the double Malaysian disasters involving MH017 and MH370, the year still logged as one of those times where the global jet accident rate was one of history’s lowest.

Hundreds of people have died last year due to two high-profile crashes, but the International Air Transport Association, or IATA, said 2014 overall yielded few accidents on record. The number of fatal airplane crashes, according to IATA, dropped from 16 in 2013 to 12 in 2014. But it did admit that 2014 had been a record year for the number of lives claimed by global aviation accidents. The year 2014 gave off a whopping 641 fatalities, versus the 517 fatalities in the five-year period between 2009 and 2013.

The year 2014 will be well remembered by the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 017 and the disappearance of Flight 370. MH017 carried 283 passengers and 15 crew on board, while MH370 had 227 passengers and 12 crew members.

"While aviation safety was in the headlines in 2014, the data show that flying continues to improve its safety performance," Tony Tyler, IATA's director general and chief executive officer, in a statement. Their calculations revealed accident rates that occurred in 2014 was only 0.23 per million flights, versus the 0.41 per million flights rate of 2013. In the five-year period between 2009 and 2013, it was 0.58 per million flights.

IATA said the downing of MH017 by anti-aircraft weaponry was not categorised an accident under globally-recognized accident classification criteria. Still, "to the flying public an air tragedy is an air tragedy, regardless of how it is classified," Tyler said. "In 2014 we saw a reduction in the number of fatal accidents - and that would be true even if we were to include MH017 in the total."

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