"Near Misses" have always been there - there is a statistical relationship where - over time - a certain percentage of close calls aren't misses - they result in accidents. However I'd argue that innovations such as TCAS and GPWS/EGPWS mean that more mistakes result in near misses and not accidents (i.e. the percentage of accidents relative to near misses has been dropping). Of course, no system is perfect. We're taking untrained humans, flying them at nearly 600 mph six miles up, and depositing them a few thousand miles away with such regularity and precision that the biggest concern these human now have is how comfortable the seat was or how good (or bad) their in-flight food tasted. I'm repeating myself, but if we had the same rate of jetliner crashes today as we did just 40 years ago, we'd have a major disaster every week.
BTW, not too long ago jet aircraft were ranked second to trains in safety - it appears the trains are now in second place. We've killed more train passengers in the last couple months in Washington state (3) than have died in jet airline accidents in the USA in the previous 18 months (0). And the Washington state train accident is only one of several fatal train accidents in the USA in the last 18 months.