World's safest and unsafest airlines named

The UAE's Emirates Airline and Etihad Airways are among the world's safest carriers, according to a survey by Hamburg-based Jet Airliner Crash Data Evaluation Centre (JACDEC), that examined 60 of the world's operators.

Finnair is the safest airline followed by Air New Zealand, Hong Kong's Cathay Pacific, Dubai's Emirates and Abu Dhabi based Etihad Airways, according to the survey.

The company's Safety Index took into account how long the airlines had been operating, the time since the airline lost its last aircraft, as well as the total number of aircraft destroyed since 1983 — the year the company started monitoring airlines.

REVEALED: World’s safest airlines

REVEALED: World’s unsafest airlines

Virgin Australia beat British Airways for 9th place while the English carrier came ahead of Germany's Lufthansa which placed 11 on the list.

Qatar Airways was ranked 22, while Turkish Airlines was ranked 54 followed by Saudi Arabian Airlines.

Brazil's Tam Airlines came in at 59 while Taiwan-based China Airlines was ranked as the least safe carrier.

The number of fatalities reached 496 in 2012 compared with 498 the year before, while hull losses were 44 last year, down from 45 in 2011, according to JACDEC.