Is it true that the death rate among pilots in the United States has increased by 1,700% in 2021?

In December 2021, social media users began to report that, in parallel with the start of mass vaccination, American pilots began to die en masse. We have verified the accuracy of such publications.

Users "VKontakte", Facebook And Twitter They are distributing a screenshot with a certain list of American pilots who died in 2019–2021. They draw attention to the fact that, according to this screenshot, in 2019 there was only one such case, in 2020 there were six, and in 2021 there are already 111. “With the current intensity of disposal, by the end of the year the number of victims of the crazy “vaccination” among pilots in the United States may reach 150 people with an increase of 2400% by the end of the year,” sums up one of the authors of such publications.

The screenshot shared by social media users is taken from magazine Air Line Pilot Magazine. It is produced by the Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA), which on its own website calls calling itself "the world's largest pilots' union." The association represents more than 60,000 pilots from 38 American and Canadian airlines and calls its primary purpose "to promote and advocate for all aspects of aviation safety in all segments of the aviation community" and to "represent the interests of commercial aviation pilots."

A screenshot of one of the pages of the September 2021 issue of the magazine appears to be genuine, although we were unable to find this issue in the public domain. However, the meaning of the In Memoriam section (“In memory of...”) was misinterpreted by many Internet users, first in the United States and then in other countries. Our colleagues from the American project Lead Stories contacted ALPA contacted ALPA for comment - its representative responded to fact checkers that the association had already explained the situation on its verified Twitter account.

ALPA said that such lists of deceased pilots (both active and retired) appear in each issue of their magazine, and information is provided to them by relatives of the pilots. It is important that the names in these lists appear as similar messages are received, that is, the September issue (from which the screenshot is taken) presents information received since the publication previous in summer. “The information in one issue of the magazine does not represent a full report on all losses in each of the named years. We salute all [association] members for their work and honor their memory,” concludes a representative of the organization on Twitter.

Although some of the comments to this tweet continue to express doubt (“It’s so simple... How many pilots died in 2019? How many pilots died in 2020? But we all know... No one wants to tell us”), ALPA’s statement is not difficult to verify. Although full issues of Air Line Pilot Magazine are only available to members, we were able to find a few issues. For example, in the March 2019 issue in the In Memoriam section appear 55 pilots who died in 2018, and 13 pilots who died in 2019:

In the December issue of the same year, the list is even more diverse: it are mentioned pilots who died in 2007, 2009, 2013, 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019:

A similar picture can be observe and in the December 2020 issue:

Finally, neither the ALPA statement nor other authoritative sources make a connection between pilot deaths and vaccinations. Many American airlines indeed require encourage their pilots to get vaccinated, but there is no reason to link this to the data presented in Air Line Pilot Magazine (especially considering that among the names in the screenshot There is there are many people who ended their careers long ago and died at a very respectable age).

Cover photo: Wikimedia Commons

Not true

What do our verdicts mean?

Read on the topic:

1. Lead Stories. Fact Check: Pilot Deaths Are NOT 'Up 1700% After Vax Mandates'
2. Air Line Pilot Magazine