The trend is the same in the U.S., according to data from the National Transportation Safety Board. There hasn't been a passenger death on a U.S. carrier since a turboprop operated by Colgan Air crashed near Buffalo, New York, on Feb. 12, 2009, killing 50 people.

While there have been two crashes on regional airline flights and mishaps involving mechanics and ground crew, there has been only one fatal accident on a large U.S. carrier jet in the past 10 years, according to the data. That accident killed a child after a Southwest Airlines Co. plane skidded off a runway at Chicago's Midway Airport on Dec. 8, 2005.

No survivors

One outgrowth of the declining accidents is that the only crashes that now occur in the most developed nations are unusual and difficult to predict, said Michael Barr, who teaches aviation safety at the University of Southern California.

"Almost all accidents now are one of a kind," Barr said in an interview. "As the number of hazards out there on airplanes get less and less, you'd expect that."

In the crash Tuesday involving Germanwings, the low-cost unit of Deutsche Lufthansa AG, investigators are racing to figure out why the airplane carrying 150 people made an unauthorized descent from cruising altitude before slamming into mountain slopes. The loss involves a reliable and widely flown aircraft, the Airbus A320, traveling at a safe cruising altitude on a busy route in broad daylight and good weather.

The French government said there is no hope of finding survivors.

Before Tuesday, there had been three fatal accidents in Europe on large jets built by Boeing Co. or Airbus Group NV in the past 10 years, according to data from the Aviation Safety Network, Boeing and the International Air Transport Association trade group.