Flying becoming safer, IATA

Transport 19/02/2010

The International Air Transport Association yesterday released figures on aviation safety performance for the year 2009 and revealed that it was the second safest year in aviation history for Western-built jet aircraft. The accident rate was just 0.71 per million flights, or, one accident for every 1.4 million flights. This figure is an improvement on the result for 2008 which saw one accident for every 1.2 million flights.

The report also highlights the difference in performance between regions with no hull losses of Western-built aircraft in North Asia, Latin America, the Caribbean and the Commonwealth of Independent States. Europe and North America (0.45 and 0.41 losses respectively) compared favourably to Asia Pacific's who scored 0.86 compared to 0.58 the previous year. The Middle East and North Africa also saw a deterioration in their safety records with 3.32 losses up from 1.89 in 2008. And with by far the worst score was Africa, despite only accounting for 2% of global traffic, with a score of 9.94 which equates to five Western-built hull losses. The causes of accidents were put down to among others, runway excursions, ground damage and pilot handling.

Some figures: 2.3 billion people flew safely on 35 million flights (27 million jet, 8 million turboprop) and there were 19 accidents involving Western-built jet aircraft compared to 22 in 2008. 90 accidents occurred in 2009 (all aircraft types, Eastern- and Western-built) compared to 109 in 2008. 18 fatal accidents took place (all aircraft types) compared to 23 in 2008 and there were 685 fatalities in 2009 compared to 502 in 2008.