Despite EgyptAir flight MS804 2016 is on course to be one of the safest years for air travel in history

A total of 164 lives have been lost in 141 days

The crashed EgyptAir plane, an Airbus A320 registration SU-GCC, is seen here taking off from Vienna in August 2015 (AP)

The crash of flight MS804 from Paris to Cairo, with the loss of 66 lives, has shaken confidence in air safety. But analysis by The Independent shows that, at the present rate of fatal air events, 2016 is on track to become one of the safest years on record.

The EgyptAir tragedy is the fifth fatal event involving a passenger aircraft so far this year. The first was on 2 February, when a Daallo Airlines flight from Mogadishu suffered an inflight explosion. The Islamist militant group, Al-Shabaab, said it had deployed a suicide bomber - believed to be the sole person to die. The crew and other passengers landed safely.

On 24 February, a Twin Otter propellor plane crashed on a domestic flight from Pokhara to Jomsom in Nepal. The three crew and 20 passengers were killed. Another domestic flight in Asia - from Oksapmin in Papua New Guinea - suffered an engine failure on the approach to Kiunga, killing the pilot and 12 passengers.

On 19 March 2016, 62 people died aboard FlyDubai flight FZ981 from Dubai to Rostov-on-Don in Russia. The plane crashed while undergoing a "go-around" procedure in wintry weather.

A total of 164 lives have been lost in 141 days. On an annualised basis, that represents a total of 425 victims - below the average for the decade so far. The only year which has done significantly better is 2013, when 224 people died in 17 accidents. The figures for 2014 and 2015 were much higher, primarily because of the two Malaysia Airlines disasters in 2014, and the Germanwings and Metrojet losses in 2015.

The safest airlines, in terms of flying the most passengers with no loss of life in accidents, remain the world's three low-cost giants. The Texan airline Southwest has carried over 1.5 billion passengers in its 45-year history without a fatal accident. Ryanair has safely carried more than 800m passengers since its foundation in 1985, while easyJet has carried 700m passengers in the past 21 years without a fatal event.