In recent years, the export volume of the “new three types” of foreign trade represented by lithium batteries has increased significantly, while lithium batteries, as dangerous goods, have caused frequent air transport safety accidents. The existing research on the causes of lithium battery air transportation accidents is not perfect, and there is a lack of analysis on the importance and relevance of the causes of accidents. However, complex network models can better reflect the relationship between accident causes. Therefore, this article proposes to use complex network models to analyze the various risk factors that lead to lithium battery air transportation accidents. This paper systematically analyzes 533 lithium battery air transportation incidents from 2006 to 2024. 25 sub risk factors and the final accident results were identified from the four main risk factors of human factors, battery related factors, environmental factors and other factors. At the same time, nodes and edges were determined by combining complex network theory, and adjacency matrices were established. A risk factor network model of lithium battery air transportation with 26 nodes and 110 edges was constructed by using Gephi software. On this basis, the model is analyzed by complex network indicators such as network size and density, node degree, clustering coefficient, and intermediary centrality. The results show that the main causes of lithium battery air transportation accidents are Improper storage, Lithium battery goods not declared or concealed, Improper handling and other factors. At the same time, the lithium battery air transportation accident network is a scale-free network with small world characteristics, indicating that the chain effect between accident risk factors is obvious, and controlling the above key factors can effectively prevent accidents. The research results can provide ideas and reference for improving the safety of air transportation of lithium battery cargo.