Aircraft/Boeing
Is the Boeing 737-700 safe?
The honest safety record for the Boeing 737-700, straight from the accident data. Context, not spin.
Informational only. Not safety, operational, or travel advice. These are estimates from public records, provided as-is; see our terms & disclaimer.
0.07
modelled fatal rate / million flights
31.0M
flights flown since 1998
2 / 3
fatal accidents / hull losses on record
The rate is the model's shrinkage-adjusted estimate, the same figure used in a flight's score, not a raw count ÷ flights ratio. See the methodology.
Specifications
What the record shows
The 737-700 is the short-fuselage member of Boeing's Next Generation family and entered revenue service with Southwest Airlines in January 1998, after delivery of the first aircraft in December 1997. Across roughly 1,135 commercial airframes and an estimated 31 million departures it has recorded three hull losses and two accidents with occupant fatalities: the 2010 AIRES landing accident at San Andres, Colombia, which killed two of 131 aboard, and the 2018 Southwest Airlines engine failure over Pennsylvania, which killed one of 149 aboard. Both fatal events were survivable, and the type holds the Next Generation family's 180 minute ETOPS approval granted by the FAA in September 1999.
Engine programme: Fleet-years times typical annual cycles. Built: 1,130 x 737-700 plus 5 x 737-700C commercial deliveries (Boeing orders and deliveries via Wikipedia, June 2026), excluding 113 BBJ1 and about 230 military derivatives (P-8A, C-40, E-7). Deliveries ran 1997 to 2019 with the bulk in 1998 to 2008, weighted mean delivery year about 2005. Allowing for roughly 400 airframes retired or parked to date (world EXCLUSIONS: EXCLUDED UNDER THE DELIBERATE-ACT POLICY: Air Mauritanie Flight 261, 15 February 2007, a 737-700 hijacked en route to Las Palmas. Excluded as deliberate human action. It changes nothing numerically because there were no fatalities and the aircraft was not written off. No shoot-downs, bombings, hijack-into-target events or confirmed crew murder-suicide involve the -700, so the exclusion policy leav
Who flies the Boeing 737-700, and how old theirs are
Counted from individual airframes in our registry, with build years from public registries and sourced references. An age appears only where we can date at least three of that airline's Boeing 737-700 aircraft; otherwise we say so rather than estimate.
| Airline | In our registry | Average age |
|---|---|---|
| Southwest Airlines | 46 | 21.7 yrs |
| Aeroméxico | 5 | 20.8 yrs |
| United Airlines | 4 | 26.8 yrs |
| Ethiopian Airlines | 3 | 22 yrs |
| Alaska Airlines | 2 | not enough dated |
| Saudia | 2 | not enough dated |
| Copa Airlines | 2 | not enough dated |
| Gol Transportes Aéreos | 1 | not enough dated |
| Klm | 1 | not enough dated |
| Korean Air | 1 | not enough dated |
| All Nippon Airways | 1 | not enough dated |