Flying was less deadly in 2012 than in any year since 1945, but that does not mean all airlines are equally safe.
The Jet Airliner Crash Data Evaluation Centre (JACDEC), which collects information about aviation accidents and safety, has published its annual Airline Safety Ranking.
The ratings take into account the number and deadliness of the hull losses (destroyed airplanes) they have suffered in the past 30 years, how they have fared more recently, and how many flights they have flown without incident.

The results do not take into account the cause of the hull losses, or whether the airline is at fault, so they are not a perfect measure of how safely an airline behaves.

Of 60 ranked airlines, here are the 10 with the worst safety records, including the number of hull losses since 1983, and how many fatalities they caused:

#10 SkyWest Airlines: 3 hull losses; 22 dead

#9 South African Airways: 1 hull loss; 159 dead

#8 Thai Airways International: 5 hull losses; 309 dead

#7 Turkish Airlines: 6 hull losses, 188 dead

#6 Saudia: 4 hull losses; 310 dead

#5 Korean Air: 9 hull losses; 687 dead

#4 GOL Transportes Aéreos: 1 hull loss; 154 dead

#3 Air India: 3 hull losses; 329 dead

#2 TAM Airlines: 6 hull losses; 336 dead

 #1 China Airlines: 8 hull losses; 755 dead


Update: This post has been updated to clarify how JACDEC produces its safety rankings.