With three back-to-back aviation crashes in the United States at the beginning of 2025, students have developed concerns about their upcoming flights.
On Jan. 29, an American Airlines passenger jet collided mid-air with a military helicopter, killing 67 people and marking the deadliest American Airlines plane crash since November 2001, according to CBS News.
Two days after the accident, a medical jet crashed into a Philadelphia neighborhood, resulting in seven casualties.
Most recently, a plane crashed at the Scottsdale Airport on Monday, killing one person and injuring three. According to a statement from the City of Scottsdale, the crash resulted from a Learjet veering off the runway when landing, crashing into another jet.
"It was unfortunate," Jordyn Begay, a freshman studying chemistry, said. "There's a lot of flights every day, so the possibility is scary."
With an upcoming flight to Los Angeles, Begay said air travel makes him nervous because of the recent incidents. Begay also has multiple flights scheduled over Spring Break for a conference in Indiana.
As a strategy to cope with any fears of flying he has developed over the past month, Begay said he avoids the topic of plane crashes altogether.
"I just try not to think about it," he said.
These accidents spark fear in students, but a professor in aviation believes no one should be worried about flying. Michael Pearson, a clinical associate professor of Aviation at ASU, said airline passengers have nothing to worry about. Pearson is a pilot and previously worked as an air traffic controller.
"Flying, even though we are having some major challenges right now, is still the safest way to travel," Pearson said.
In 2023, there were 0.318 aviation accidents per 100,000 scheduled departures, according to the National Transportation Safety Board.
Lilly Vega, a sophomore studying computer science, is concerned like Begay with the frequent plane crashes in the U.S., as she already has an aversion to flying.
"It's honestly pretty scary how there's more and more happening," Vega said. "I'm not big about flights, I usually get plane sick whenever I go, so this just makes me want to avoid a plane even more."
Vega said seeing the plane crashes in the news makes her want to be more cautious about everything.
"This could be anyone — a friend, a family member," Vega said.
Pearson said he attributes the crash in Washington D.C. to the failure of an air traffic controller who lacked proper awareness from being overworked.
"My assumption is that the controller, because of the lack of staffing, was fatigued and maybe overlooked some things they should not have overlooked," Pearson said in reference to the crash.
Even among safeguard protocols at Reagan Airport, Pearson said it was an anomaly and never should have happened.
"It's just really sad," Pearson said. "There was a system. The system failed."
As for the crash in Philadelphia, Pearson said he thinks it was caused by some type of "catastrophic failure," but is in no way correlated with the Washington D.C. crash. According to Pearson, the two incidents happening within days are pure coincidence.
"People should not think that because we're having things happen right in a row, that there's a system failure, because they're not even related," Pearson said.
Despite the freak accidents throughout the past month, Pearson said the safest way to travel is still commercial flying, and it was true before and after the Reagan Airport incident.
The Scottsdale Airport is currently closed as the National Transportation Safety Board investigates the crash, according to the City of Scottsdale. The facility is not used by any commercial airlines and is primarily utilized by corporate aircrafts.
"It's getting too close now because it was in Pennsylvania, and it was in D.C., and now it's in Scottsdale, which is right down the road," Denise Ortega, a senior studying finance, said.
Ortega said she is more scared to fly after reading about the plane crashes, but she tries to keep the fears in the back of her mind.
"Now that you're seeing it more and more often, it's starting to get scarier," Ortega said.
Jordan Phousa, a junior studying business, remains trusting like Pearson of airplanes and pilots. He said statistics give him no reason to be fearful.
"The people flying the planes are incredibly competent," Phousa said. "Even if there may have been a lot of accidents in such close timeframes, for the most part, I've never had a fear of flying."
Edited by George Headley, Abigail Beck and Natalia Jarrett.
Reach the reporter at ehprest1@asu.edu and follow @ellis_reports on X.
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Ellis is a sophomore studying journalism and mass communication. This is her first semester with The State Press. She has also worked at Arizona PBS and Blaze Radio.
