Commercial airlines around the world recorded zero deaths in 2017 — and according to U.S. President Donald Trump, the credit goes to him.
Trump responded to the findings of a report by Aviation Safety Network, a Dutch consulting firm, Tuesday morning.
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According to the report, “2017 was the safest year for aviation ever.”
“Since taking office I have been very strict on Commercial Aviation,” Trump wrote. “Good news – it was just reported that there were Zero deaths in 2017, the best and safest year on record!”
The president’s tweet prompted confused reactions on social media, with many people disputing or mocking his claim.
The statistics in the report are also worldwide, which raised more questions about how much impact one president could have had.
Trump did not respond to the criticism or elaborate on how exactly he contributed to making aviation safer.
Hours after the tweet, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders stuck to crediting Trump for safer air travel in 2017.
“The president has raised the bar for our nation’s aviation security,” Sanders said during the press briefing. “Last year, the president announced his initiative to modernize air traffic control, and under his leadership the Department of Homeland Security released enhanced security measures to ensure safer commercial air travel.”
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Since taking office, Trump has had a rocky relationship with the country’s Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). In June 2017, he put forward a motion to privatize air traffic control. The president’s proposal would have had the FAA control safety oversight, but another organization carry out traffic control operations.
Several aviation associations and members of Congress expressed concern over the proposal.
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A few months later in September, the FAA’s Rulemaking Advisory Committee recommended that the organization slash some of its safety rules, such as pilot qualifications, in response to demands from the president that there be fewer government regulations on businesses.
U.S. airline safety
It’s also worth noting that U.S. aviation has been safe for years — not just since Trump became president.
While other airlines have had fatal accidents on U.S. soil, there have been zero deaths on U.S. airline flights since 2009, when a plane crashed in New York.
In 2016, 412 people were killed in America in aviation accidents, but nearly all in general aviation accidents and none on commercial passenger airlines.
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Aviation safety in 2017
While 2017 was safer, the report noted there were still injuries and deaths in other types of aviation.
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The Aviation Safety Network said there were no commercial passenger jet deaths in 2017, but 10 fatal airliner accidents resulting in 44 fatalities onboard and 35 persons on the ground, including cargo planes and commercial passenger turbo prop aircraft.
In comparison, there were 16 accidents and 303 deaths in 2016 among airliners.
— With files from Reuters, The Associated Press