Was 2014 the most dangerous year for air travel this decade?

By now you've probably heard that on Sunday at 7:24 a.m. Singapore time, an Airbus A320 flying from Surabaya, Indonesia to Singapore appears to have vanished from the sky somewhere between Indonesia and Singapore with 162 people on board. This marks the third unsolved commercial airline tragedy in the region this year, and has many people believing 2014 was a particularly disastrous year.

We currently know that the pilot of flight 8501 was denied permission from air traffic control to fly higher than the scheduled 34,000 feet to evade a cloud bank, and according to AccuWeather meteorologist Tyler Roys, the flight’s designated path was full of severe thunderstorms.

Meanwhile, after unidentified objects were spotted in the water by the Australian Orion plane, the latest theory is that the plane is at the bottom of the Java Sea. Additionally, an air force spokesman reported to MetroTV that two oily slicks were spotted at the surface of the sea by an Indonesia helicopter, not far from where the plane and air traffic control last communicated.

There are still many questions currently left unanswered, but while officials fear the worst, there are 30 ships and 50 aircraft still searching for survivors in a rescue mission.

Considering the vanishing of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 in March and the wreck of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 (thought to have been shot down near the Ukraine-Russia border in July) remain mysteries, potential passengers are understandably frightened. But while 2014 may have been a horrific year for airlines based out of Malaysia (Air Asia also calls Kuala Lumpur home), the truth is that it was far from the worst year in flying. According to the Bureau of Aircraft Accidents Archives, 2014 has seen 111 plane crashes, the lowest statistic since 1927, which also had 111.

That being said, CNN points out that in terms of fatalities, the numbers are grim. This year, there have been 1,158 airplane deaths — 1,320 if the passengers aboard this recent AirAsia flight are all found perished — making it the most lives lost flying since 2005. Oddly enough, 2013 marked the safest year for flying since 1945 with only 265 deaths.

"Every ten years or so, we have a year that is less safe than others," Ronan Hubert with the Bureau of Aircraft Accident Archives told CNN. "Unfortunately this year was one of those."