Washington ? Last year was the safest ever for the world’s airline passengers.

Only 25 commercial airliners crashed in fatal accidents in 2003, by far the lowest number in modern aviation history, according to the Aviation Safety Network, a Netherlands-based independent organization that tracks plane crashes.

The 2003 performance was 26 percent lower than the previous record for fatal airline crashes — 34 in 2001, said Harro Ranter, the network’s president. Between 1973 and 2002, the world averaged 50 fatal airliner accidents.

“It’s amazing,” Ranter said Friday. “It was most definitely the safest year for airline passengers in the world.”

The skies have been getting safer for decades. The 1970s averaged 61 fatal airliner accidents a year, the 1980s averaged 53 and the 1990s averaged 48.

The United States suffered two fatal commercial airline accidents in 2003: an Air Midwest flight on Jan. 8 that crashed in Charlotte, N.C., killing 21 people, and an Aug. 26 crash on Cape Cod that killed two crew members.