Fewer civil transports crashed worldwide last year, but more people died in the accidents, according to the International Air Transport Association (IATA).

The number of fatalities rose to 685 from 502 in 2008, but the number of fatal accidents dropped to 18 from 23 the year before, a major accident rate that was the second-lowest on record, IATA said.

Three deadly accidents raised the death toll for airline crashes.

∑ Air France Flight 447 disappeared over the Atlantic Ocean en route from Brazil to France with 228 people aboard on June 1.

∑ A Yemenia Airways Airbus A310 crashed into the Indian Ocean off the Comoros Islands on June 30, killing 152 people on board.

∑ A Russian-made jetliner bound for Armenia crashed in northwest Iran shortly after taking off from Tehran on July 15. All 168 people on board were killed.

The 2009 global accident rate (measured in hull losses per million flights of Western-built jet aircraft) was 0.71. That is equal to one accident for every 1.4 million flights. This is a significant improvement of the 0.81 rate recorded in 2008 (one accident for 1.2 million flights). 

The 2009 rate was the second lowest in aviation history, just above the 2006 rate of 0.65. Compared to 10 years ago, the accident rate has been cut 36% from the rate recorded in 2000.

In absolute numbers, 2009 saw the following results

    •    2.3 billion people flew safely on 35 million flights (27 million jet, 8 million turboprop)

    •    19 accidents involving western built jet aircraft compared to 22 in 2008

    •    90 accidents (all aircraft types, Eastern and Western built) compared to 109 in 2008

    •    18 fatal accidents (all aircraft types) compared to 23 in 2008

    •    685 fatalities compared to 502 in 2008

IATA member airlines outperformed the industry average with a Western-built jet hull accident rate of 0.62. That rate is equal to one accident for every 1.6 million flights.

From April 1, 2009, all IATA members were on the registry of the IATA Operational Safety Audit. Today 332 carriers are on the registry, including IATA’s 231 members

IATA noted significant regional differences in the accident rate.

    •    North Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean as well as the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) had zero western-built jet hull losses in 2009

    •    North America (0.41) and Europe (0.45) performed better than the global average of 0.71

    •    Asia-Pacific’s accident rate worsened to 0.86 in 2009 (compared to 0.58 in 2008) with three accidents involving carriers from the region.

    •    The Middle East and North Africa region saw its accident rate rise to 3.32 (compared to 1.89 in 2008) with four accidents involving carriers from the region.

    •    Africa had an accident rate of 9.94, significantly higher than their 2008 rate of 2.12. Africa has once again the worst rate of the world.  There were five Western-built jet hull losses with African carriers in 2009. African carriers are 2% of global traffic, but 26% of global western-built jet hull losses.

An analysis of the causes of the 2009 accidents focuses on three main areas:

    •    Runway excursions continue to be a challenge and accounted for 26% of all accidents in 2009.  However, the total number of runway excursions dropped by 18% (23 vs 28 in 2008). IATA released its Runway Excursion Risk Reduction Toolkit in 2009, with an updated version to be produced later this year. The toolkit is incorporated with IATA’s broad ranging safety data tools in the IATA Global Safety Information Center (GSIC), a customizable website which will enable users to extract relevant safety information through a single application and enable them to perform performance benchmark and conduct trend analysis and risk management.

    •    Ground damage accounted for 10% of all accidents in 2009. To improve safety and reduce this US$4 billion annual industry cost, IATA introduced the IATA Safety Audit for Ground Operations (ISAGO). Built on similar principles to IOSA, ISAGO is the industry’s first global standard for the oversight and auditing of ground handling companies. The first audits took place in 2008. To date a total of 149 audits have been conducted.

    •     While runway excursions and ground damage were the main categories of accidents, pilot handling was noted as a contributing factor in 30% of all accidents.

IATA is working through ICAO to develop a Fatigue Risk Management System as part of a Safety Management System. This will be a new process to systematically manage crew fatigue taking into account changes in aircraft capabilities and airline operations.

“Safety is a constant challenge. Having made aviation the safest way to travel, further improvements will come only with careful data analysis. We must understand the underlying safety risk trends, not just from the handful of accidents each year, but by bringing together and analyzing data from millions of safe flights.

“The IATA Global Safety Information Center was launched in December 2009 for just that purpose. Going forward our goal is to work with other organizations and governments involved in aviation safety to add to the database and drive even more improvements,” said Giovanni Bisignani, IATA’s director general and CEO.

Ramon Lopez also serves as editor-in-chief of Air Safety Week; he has been covering air safety for more than three decades (rlopez@accessintel.com).

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