Since 1985, BA has never had a fatal accident, the closest call coming in 2008, when First Officer John Coward earned his place in the aviation Hall of Fame by landing a plane without any power. Read the full story here.

As of March 2026, the last time a British Airways flight was involved in a major crash resulting in a total hull loss and fatalities was British Airways Flight 9 in 1982, which famously flew through a cloud of volcanic ash over Indonesia (though miraculously, no lives were lost as the crew restarted the engines). The most significant "crash" in modern memory was BA Flight 38 in 2008, a Boeing 777 that suffered dual engine failure due to ice crystals in the fuel system and landed short of the runway at London Heathrow. While the aircraft was destroyed, there were no fatalities. More recently, in January 2026, a British Airways A350-1000 (Flight BA274) made headlines when a rear landing gear wheel fell off during takeoff from Las Vegas. However, the aircraft continued its flight across the Atlantic and landed safely at Heathrow, which is categorized as a "mechanical incident" rather than a crash. British Airways maintains one of the strongest safety records in the aviation industry, having operated for over four decades without a single fatal accident involving one of its mainline jet aircraft.