Boeing 737, the story of a civil aviation bestseller with a tragic record

There are certain aircraft models without which the history of civil aviation as we know it would be inconceivable. One of them is the Boeing 737.

Janet: an airline with which you will never fly to a place that they claimed did not exist
The history of the airliners DC-8, DC-9 and DC-10 of the Spanish airline Iberia

The story of the Boeing 737, popularly known as "Baby Boeing" in its early days due to its small size, began in May 1964 when Boeing started developing a twin-engine, short- and medium-range aircraft to complement the four-engine Boeing 707 and the three-engine 727, in order to compete with the McDonnell Douglas DC-9.

The new aircraft entered production in 1966, 60 years ago, and made its first flight on April 9, 1967. If you want to know more about what happened next, Fly By Wire Aviation (a YouTube channel I recommend you subscribe to) has published one of its excellent videos today dedicated to the Boeing 737, its history, and its variants (the video is in Spanish; you can activate automatic English subtitles in the bottom bar of the player):

As the video correctly points out, the Boeing 737 is one of the biggest sales successes in civil aviation. For many years it was the best-selling passenger aircraft, a record that the Airbus A320 took from it in September 2025, reaching 12,257 units delivered since its first flight in 1987 (compared to 12,254 Boeing 737 units delivered since 1968). As the video points out, in these 60 years of history, the 737 has developed into four distinct generations, with significant improvements in its engines (quieter and with less fuel consumption), wings and avionics.

One of the Boeing 737's most tragic records is related to its sales success: it is the passenger aircraft with the most fatal accidents, with 234 total loss accidents and 5,779 deaths as of February 2024. Does that mean the Boeing 737 is an unsafe aircraft? Not at all. It should be noted that the 737 family of aircraft has completed hundreds of millions of flights in 58 years of service, so statistically it is normal that it has also recorded many accidents, especially in airlines from underdeveloped countries.

Currently, the Boeing 737 has a very long list of operators, including some of the largest fleets of civilian aircraft in history. There are 16 airlines that have more than 100 Boeing 737s in their fleets. The largest operator is the US airline Southwest Airlines with 815 aircraft, provided we count the Irish company Ryanair (537 units) and its subsidiary Ryanair DAC (298 units) as separate companies, since together they total 835 Boeing 737s. In these figures, the Boeing 737 surpasses its main competitor: the largest Airbus A320 fleet is that of American Airlines, with 589 aircraft, followed by China Eastern Airlines (390) and IndiGo (India, with 351).

---

Main photo: Boeing. The Boeing 737-800 prototype.