Annual reports
2025
The BEA will be celebrating its 80th anniversary in 2026. As I write these lines, more than 17,000 occurrences have been the subject of a safety investigation since 1946. BEA staff, past and present, can be proud of the work accomplished. Indeed, the BEA's technical and human expertise, along with its collective capacity for renewal and innovation, has made it a global benchmark. In 80 years, the world of civil aviation and the world at large have evolved considerably, but the BEA's mission, championed by its successive directors since Maurice Bellonte, remains the same: to improve civil aviation safety. The past year has been no exception.
At a global level, this year was marked by major accidents in commercial air transport in the United States and India. While no such accidents occurred in France, the BEA opened investigations into serious incidents that could have had catastrophic outcomes. The near-collision in Nice on 21 September 2025, which received extensive media coverage, illustrates, if any further proof were needed, that safety can never be taken for granted. A large team of dedicated investigators are still working on this serious incident. France recorded five commercial air transport accidents, resulting in a total of nine serious injuries: two in two balloon accidents and seven in two airliner accidents related to inflight turbulence.
At an international level, the BEA, as is the case every year, appointed numerous accredited representatives to contribute to
investigations. Two accidents where a BEA team was dispatched to the scene stand out: the fire on an Airbus A321 in South Korea, with no fatalities and the crash of a Dassault Falcon 50 in Turkey, which claimed eight lives, including two French citizens.
Regarding safety in general aviation in France, the picture is rather mixed. The number of accidents and victims across all activities is slightly higher, but remains below the average of the past decade. This increase is primarily due to aeroplane accidents, which are rising and exceed the decade's averages, while those for the microlight activity are relatively stable, or even falling. 2025 marked the implementation of a new BEA investigation policy. This new policy, which notably resulted in the discontinuation of desktop investigations (known as Category 3 investigations), allows the BEA to better allocate its resources to occurrences from which it hopes to draw the most valuable safety lessons, particularly the analysis of early warning signs. It reflects a commitment to publishing investigation reports more quickly and increasing the number of targeted and directly usable publications that accompany an investigation report.
This desire to better showcase the results of the investigations has also led to an evolution of the website, notably with a more user-friendly structure and easier tracking of issued recommendations.
2025 was also the year of two important events at the BEA: an ICAO audit and a peer review by the European Network of Civil Aviation Safety Investigation Authorities (ENCASIA). While their official results have not yet been published, it is already clear that the BEA's organization and effectiveness will be highlighted, reinforcing its strategy of achieving technical independence and the continuous improvement of its methods.
I wish you all a pleasant read!
Pierre-Yves Huerre,
BEA Director
Download BEA's 2025 Activity report: pdf high resolution (28Mo) / pdf standard resolution (6Mo)
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