Air travel remains far and away the safest mode of transportation, but you might want to make sure you’ve prepared your will and are on good terms with all your loved ones before boarding flights in some parts of the world. The International Air Transport Association (IATA) keeps track of accidents in countries around the world. Aging aircraft, incompetent pilots and dilapidated air traffic control systems make these the most dangerous places in the world to fly.

Russia

Russian engineers built some of the world’s finest aircraft, fighters and bombers that were every bit a match for their Western counterparts. Tupolev may have made a hell of a strategic bomber but safety, however, may not have been the ultimate concern, as the woeful record of its passenger jets shows. But even as the Russians are scrambling to replace their old Soviet jets with new models from Boeing and Airbus, a new problem has emerged: They aren’t used to flying them. A crumbling air traffic control infrastructure, poorly trained crews and Russia’s terrible weather help to make it and the so-called Commonwealth of Independent States that made up the Soviet Union, one the most unsafe places in the world to fly, although things are improving. In 2006, planes crashed 13 times as often in Russia as they did in the rest of the world. But in 2007, there were zero hull losses (the loss of the entire aircraft) in Russia, as the country moved to enforce stricter standards, a lesson the others on this list could stand to learn.

Africa

While flight safety is improving in Africa, it still lags behind Western standards. The popularity of Soviet aircraft has been one cause for the number of incidents on the continent. Shady airlines who don’t comply with the standards set by the IATA are another reason. However, there are countries like Mauritius and South Africa that have relatively good safety records. But others, like the Democratic Republic of Congo and Kenya more than make up for them. Poor infrastructure completes a trifecta which makes the accident rate in Africa six times the global standard. Back in 2006, the World Bank withheld funds from African nations for being slow to implement accepted air safety regulations.

Indonesia

Indonesian airlines are so unsafe that they are currently banned from flying into the European Union. The country’s government has responded by refusing to implement the IATA’s safety standard on domestic airlines. We’re not sure we understand the logic of this move by the transport ministry there, but it gives you a good idea of flight safety in Indonesia. Indonesia, which deregulated its airline industry, has been a victim of its own success. As airlines proliferated to serve fliers moving about the archipelago, safety standards weren’t able to keep pace.

Brazil

A 2006 crash in which 154 people died after a private jet clipped a Boeing 737 airliner highlighted the woeful state of Brazil’s air traffic control system. Less than a year later, almost 200 died when their Airbus A320 skidded off the runway in São Paolo. In the same year a massive radar outage blinded planes across the country. Short and slippery runways and a lack of aviation infrastructure are another reason for the dismal safety record. The International Federation of Air Traffic Controllers (IFATCA) have called on Brazil to introduce outside regulators to oversee safety gaps. But these calls for international review have been met with indignance from the country’s government. In fact, the head of Brazil’s air traffic control system responded by calling the IFATCA a “bunch of idiots.”