Government officials say U.S. aviation is safer than ever, yet small air cargo planes encounter a high number of crashes, The Miami Herald found.

The last major crash of a U.S. passenger plane was Nov. 12, 2001, when an American Airlines jet bound for the Dominican Republic crashed in Queens, N.Y., killing all 260 people aboard and five on the ground. Rare multiple-fatality crashes have occurred since, most recently when a Chalk's Ocean Airways Flight 101 seaplane plunged into waters off South Beach Dec. 19, killing 20.

By contrast, air cargo planes fatally crashed nearly once a month, on average, from 2000-04.

Some of the numbers behind the industry:

. The small air cargo family of aircraft, which also includes air taxis, charters and emergency medical service helicopters, had a fatal accident rate more han 50 times greater than that of giant carriers during 2001, according to a National Transportation Safety Board report this past February. Government reports do not distinguish individual crash rates of such operations.

Yet The Miami Herald found that among similarly regulated planes, air cargo crashes are 50 percent more likely to result in fatalities than those carrying passengers.

. In 2004, cargo's group of aircraft had 2.20 crashes for every 100,000 hours of U.S. flight, according to Robert E. Breiling Associates, a private group. That compares with rates of 0.11 for corporate jets, 0.13 for scheduled air carriers, 0.90 for business travel and 1.51 for scheduled commuters.

Two crashes per 100,000 hours may seem insignificant, and some small cargo companies say they are committed to safety.

But the crash rate is well above other forms of commercial aviation, and the industry's fatal crash rate is far higher than the benchmark the FAA has set for passenger carriers.

The only category with a higher crash rate is general aviation, which often includes small private noncommercial aircraft, whose accident rate is nearly three times higher. Experts say that is of little surprise, because this group frequently includes private pilots less practiced in aviation.

In 2004, the cargo and other on-demand companies' fatal accident rate was 65 times greater than that of larger carriers, NTSB records show -- and was the highest it had been since 1996.

. Even with fatalities down in 2005, the on-demand carriers had a fatal rate nearly 23 times that of airline carriers.

-- Ronnie Greene