Crash Increases Record Toll in Aviation This Year to 1,948

This year had already brought the highest death toll in the history of commercial aviation before Thursday’s crash added 258 more names to the list.

To date, 1,948 people have been killed in regularly scheduled and charter aircraft accidents in 1985, far surpassing the previous high of 1,299 in 29 accidents in 1974, according to the International Civil Aviation Organization in Montreal.

Three of this year’s crashes, including the one Thursday, killed more than 1,100 people and ranked among the 10 worst of all time. In 1984, only 224 fatalities were recorded.

The year’s worst incident was the crash of a Japan Air Lines Boeing 747 on a mountain near Tokyo on Aug. 12. The 520 deaths made it the worst single-plane crash in history.

On June 23, there were 329 deaths when an Air India 747 plunged into the Atlantic off Ireland, apparently after an explosion. Authorities suspect a bomb.

Other major disasters in 1985 included the crash of an Iberia Boeing 727 in Spain on Feb. 19, killing 148, and the crash of a Delta Airlines Lockheed L-1011 at Dallas-Fort Worth Airport on Aug. 2, killing 137.

There were 14 accidents in the United States involving smaller commuter aircraft, including the crash of a Bar Harbor Airlines plane near Lewiston, Maine, that killed Samantha Smith, the teen-ager who wrote a famous appeal for peace to former Soviet leader Yuri V. Andropov.

The international figures do not include accidents in the Soviet Union, which does not report to the 156-member U.N. agency that regulates civil aviation.

“If you take it strictly in terms of fatalities, it is the worst year in aviation history,” said ICAO spokesman Eugene Sochor. But on the basis of the number of passenger-miles flown, he added, “it is still two times as safe to fly now as it was 10 years ago.”

The major commercial air crashes in 1985 and the number killed:

Jan. 1--Eastern Airlines Boeing 727, Bolivia, 29.

Jan. 18--Soviet-built Antonov 24, China, 38.

Jan. 19--Soviet-made IL-18, Cuba, 40.

Jan. 21--Galaxy chartered Lockheed Electra, Reno, Nev., 70.

Feb. 1--Aeroflot TU-134, Soviet Union, unofficial reports up to 80 dead.

Feb. 19--Iberia Boeing 727, Spain, 148.

Feb. 22--Air Mali Antonov 24, Soviet Union. 50.

March 28--Satena Airlines Fokker 28, Colombia, 46.

May 3--Aeroflot TU-134 collision with military aircraft, Soviet Union, unofficial toll near 80.

June 23--Air India Boeing 747, off coast of Ireland, 329.

June 23--Taba Airlines, Brazil, 13.

July 24--Colombian air force DC-6 on commercial flight, Colombia, 81.

Aug. 2--Delta Airlines L-1011 TriStar, Dallas-Fort Worth, 137.

Aug. 12--Japan Air Lines Boeing 747, Japan, 520.

Aug. 22--British Airtours Boeing 737, Manchester, England, 55.

Sept. 6--Midwest Express Airlines DC-9 near Milwaukee, 31.

Sept. 23--Henson Airlines commuter Beech 99 near Weyers Cave, Va., 14.

Dec. 12--Arrow Air DC-8, Gander, Newfoundland, 258.