The World's Most Dangerous Airlines

Tara Air

Solundir via Wikimedia Commons

 

Tara Air maintains just as low a profile, internationally speaking, as Kam Air, although it operates in Nepal instead of Afghanistan. Although only one Tara Air flight has resulted in passenger fatalities, the airline has only existed for six years, which raises serious questions about its overall safety, and why precisely it's on this list of unsafe airlines.

 

Tara Air is relatively easy for most travelers to avoid, since it operates exclusively to rural destinations in Nepal, but if you want to explore the foothills of the Himalaya, and don't have the time to endure the long overland journey from Kathmandu, you may find yourself with little choice but to fly Tara Air, which is doubtlessly one of the world's most dangerous airlines.

 

This is a particularly scary prospect if you happen to be flying from Kathmandu to Lukla, the aforementioned ultra-dangerous Himalayan airport from which all Everest Base Camp treks (and treks to lower-elevation destinations in the mountains) begin.

SCAT Airlines

Maarten Visser via Wikimedia Commons

 

Kazakhstan-based SCAT Airlines' name doesn't do it any favors, even if you except the fact that its name is an acronym for something rather innocuous: "Special Cargo Air Transport." Unfortunately, SCAT's air record is just as smelly as what you think of when you first hear its name, but not because of how many fatal crashes it's suffered (just one) since it began operations in 1997. It takes talent to become one of the world's most dangerous airlines in just over two decades!

 

Rather, the European Commission's decision to blacklist SCAT stems from an overall lack of confidence in its regulatory processes, which has spilled over onto other Kazakh airlines. If your travel plans will soon take you to Kazakhstan, you might want to choose from among less unsafe airlines, such as Air Astana.