More than half of all deadly plane crashes in the world last year were in North America

• More than half of the world's fatal plane crashes happened in North America last year.
• New figures from the Aviation Safety Network found that 11 of the world's 20 fatal airline incidents in 2019 happened on the continent.
• 283 people on board aircraft were killed in these 20 incidents.
• The report said that 2019 had a "markedly higher number of accidents" compared to the last five years, but that the number of fatalities was much lower than the average over those years.
• This lower number of deaths mean that "2019 was one of the safest years ever for commercial aviation," the report found.
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North America had more deadly plane crashes than anywhere else in the world in 2019, with more than half of the world's fatal accidents taking place on the continent, according to a report from an aviation safety firm.

The Aviation Safety Network, an independent, Netherlands-based monitoring site, found that there were 20 fatal airliner incidents over the year, and said that "surprisingly" 11 of these were in North America.

Of those 11 deadly crashes, the ASN said, five were in remote parts of Canada and Alaska, which it said was "an area of concern."

In 2018, just one deadly crash occurred in the US, while there were three in 2017.

The ASN said that the figures revealed that "2019 was one of the safest years ever for commercial aviation" but warned that the number of incidents had increased, even as the number of fatalities fell compared to the average of the last five years.

283 people on board aircraft were killed in the 20 incidents globally.

Separate figures from aviation consulting firm To70 found that the number of people killed in late commercial plane crashes over the same period fell by more than 50% compared to in 2018.

To70 found that 257 people were killed in commercial planes last year.

The ASN said that its figures show that 2019 is "the seventh safest year ever by the number of fatal accidents and the third safest in terms of fatalities."

It said that 2017 was the safest-ever year, with 10 accidents and 44 people killed.

It said that 2019 had a "markedly higher number of accidents" compared to the average of the last five years, which is 14 accidents and 480 people killed per year.

13 of the year's incidents involved passenger fights, and six of them involved cargo flights.

"Given the estimated worldwide air traffic of about 39,000,000 flights, the accident rate is one fatal accident per almost two million flights."

Harro Ranter, CEO of the ASN, said that, overall, the figures show a trend towards greater safety: "If the accident rate had remained the same as ten years ago, there would have been 34 fatal accidents last year.

"At the accident rate of the year 2000, there would even have been 65 fatal accidents. This shows the enormous progress in terms of safety in the past two decades."

The biggest crash of the year in terms of deaths was the Ethiopian Airlines crash in Ethiopia in March, which killed all 157 people on board. It was the second fatal crash involving the Boeing 737 Max plane. The crash led to the plane's grounding around the world, which is still ongoing.

The crashes in North America included an Amazon Prime Air Boeing 767 in Texas in February, which killed three people, and an Alkan Air Cessna 208B in Yukon, Canada, in August, which killed two people.