2004: Statistically Safer for Passengers than Cargo

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Scotsman.com

Scottish news direct from Scotland

Mon 10 Jan 2005

8:43am (UK)

Air Safety Record Best for 20 Years

By Peter Woodman, PA Air Correspondent

Airlines enjoyed their safest year for 20 years in 2004, according to crash statistics out today.

A total of 466 people were killed in airliner flights last year, the figures from Flight International magazine showed.

There were 28 fatal accidents involving airliners last year. This compares with 27 fatal accidents in 2003 in which 702 people lost their lives.

Flight International said the only year in the jet era that comes close to the 2004 safety record was 1984, when 448 people died in 29 fatal airline accidents.

That year, however, was extraordinarily safe by the standards of its time, and the accident rate – the number of fatal accidents per million flights – was almost three times what it is now because there were far fewer flights in 1984.

Continuing a record that has held since 2001, there were no fatal accidents involving European, North American or Australasian-registered large jets in 2004. There were five fatal accidents involving big jets, and these involved aircraft registered in Africa (two) and Asia (three).

The number of fatal accidents last year, which increased by one over 2003, was inflated by an unusually high proportion of non-passenger aircraft crashes, mostly involving pure cargo operators.

Seventeen of the fatal accidents involved non-passenger flights, and these added 49 fatalities to the total for the year, leaving only 11 accidents involving passenger operations. Among those, six were regional and commuter flights.

Not included is the sabotage of two Russian airliners killing all 90 people on board. Two terrorists – believed to have been Chechen suicide bombers – succeeded in boarding two flights on August 24 at Moscow Domodedovo airport and downing a Sibir Airlines Tupolev Tu-154 and Volga-Avia Express Tu-134.

Posted on Tue, Jan. 04, 2005

Aviation improving its record for safety

More travelers, fewer fatalities reported during the past 3 years

LESLIE MILLER

Associated Press

WASHINGTON - Thirty-four people have died in U.S. commercial airline crashes in the past three years, making it one of the safest periods in aviation history even as more Americans than ever travel by air.

On Oct. 20, a Corporate Airlines twin-engine turboprop crashed into the woods on approach to the Kirksville Regional Airport in Missouri, killing 13 people. Those were the only fatalities aboard U.S. scheduled airlines for the year.

National Transportation Safety Board chairman Ellen Engleman Conners, noting that some 42,000 people die every year on the roads, said, "I hope all modes of transportation could replicate aviation's safety record."

The other fatal aviation accident in the last three years occurred at Charlotte/Douglas International Airport in January 2003, when a US Airways Express flight crashed on takeoff, killing 21.

The last U.S. crash of a jumbo jet was Nov. 12, 2001, when American Airlines Flight 587 lost part of its tail and plummeted into a New York City neighborhood, killing 265 people. Safety investigators concluded the crash was caused by the pilot moving the rudder back and forth too aggressively, which put more pressure on the tail than it could bear.

Marion Blakey, who heads the Federal Aviation Administration, said new technology has improved safety. For example, many planes now have systems that warn pilots if they're about to fly too close to the ground.

Jets and turboprops manufactured after March 29, 2003, are required by federal regulations to have a so-called Terrain Awareness and Warning System. All other planes with more than six seats must be retrofitted with the devices by March 29, 2005.

The plane that crashed in Missouri in October was months away from being outfitted with a terrain-warning system that might have prevented the accident.

Also, 34 major airports have been equipped with systems that warn air traffic controllers of a potential collision on runways. One of the worst aviation disasters in history involved two jumbo jets that ran into each other on a runway in Tenerife in the Canary Islands in 1977, killing 582 people.

Weather radar and wind shear alert systems also have helped eliminate accidents caused when planes encounter concentrated downward bursts of wind on approach to the airport.

Safety experts agree that better training and awareness of safety issues have played a big part in making U.S. skies safer.

A key effort has been the FAA's formation in 1997 of the Commercial Aviation Safety Team, which set the goal of reducing fatal aviation accident rates by 80 percent by 2007. The accident rate has fallen 50 percent since then, and is on track to meet the goal, said FAA spokeswoman Alison Duquette.

As part of the CAST project, airline unions and management, along with federal agencies and manufacturers, are collaborating on identifying safety problems and solving them. Among the 85 safety improvements CAST is working on include:

• Teaching pilots how to recover from unusual flight conditions that could be dangerous.

• Developing tougher standards for icing-prevention technology on new planes.

• Establishing new procedures for air traffic controllers to prevent collisions on runways.