It may not seem like it but this year was unusually safe for airlines

With two days left in the year, the tally stands at 824—a figure that does not include those aboard Flight 8501. That number far exceeds totals for 2013 (265), 2012 (475), and 2011 (524), according to data from the Aviation Safety Network.

Still, the spike doesn’t tell the whole story. Those deadly crashes are anomalies, and 2014 set a new record for the fewest number of commercial aviation accidents since the start of the airline age: Just 21 were recorded, including Sunday’s loss of AirAsia Flight 8501. That’s down from 29 in 2013, 23 in 2012 (the current record low) and 36 in 2011, and way down from the all-time high of 85, set in 1948.

The reason 2014 has been so deadly is because two accidents involved widebody 777 jets and killed everyone on board. “It’s extremely unusual and hard to comprehend,” says Harro Ranter, the founder and president of the Aviation Safety Network, “but when you just look at the bare figures, it’s indeed a fluke.” Take away the two Malaysia Airlines disasters and the number of fatalities drops 85 percent, to just 106.