Aviation accident rate worsens in 2008, fatality numbers improve

In announcing the aviation safety performance for 2008, the International Air Transport Association has found the number of fatalities to fall compared to 2007, although the global accident rate worsened.

Aviation accidents led to 502 fatalities in 2008, whereas there were 692 in 2007, which represented a 56% improvement from 0.23 fatalities per million passengers, to 0.13 per million.

The global accident rate, which is measured in hull losses per million flights of Western-built aircraft, stood at 0.81, which indicates an accident for every 1.2 million flights.

The 2007 safety record was slightly more impressive, with an accident rate of 0.75 which represented an accident for every 1.3 million flights.

Last year saw 109 accidents occur, compared to 100 in 2007, and the fatal accidents also increased, from 20 in 2007 to 23 last year.

The member airlines of the IATA had a far lower accident rate than the average in 2008, with 33 accidents reflecting a rate of 0.52 in 2008.

“Safety is the industry’s number one priority,” said Giovanni Bisignani, Director General and CEO of IATA. “Today’s statistics confirm that travelling by air is one the safest things that a person can do.”

The IATA Operational Safety Audit provides a global industry standard for airline safety, and is now a pre-requisite for IATA membership, as of 2009.

Airlines that have not passed the IOSA quality control process by 31 March, 2009, will have their IATA memberships terminated.

“IATA is a quality association. And the mark of that quality is safety,” said Bisignani.

“While we will be strict in upholding the IOSA standards, which are recognised by governments around the world, our goal is to raise the bar on safety with a transparent global standard and bring all of our members on board.”

The regional differences in accidents are evidence, with areas such as North America, Europe and Asia/Pacific performing consistently above the global average. North Asia as a region had a perfect record in 2008, reporting no hull losses.

The accident rate in Africa was 2.12, which was 2.6 times worse than the average. However, considering that the African rate was 9.21 in 2005, this is evidence of significant improvement.

The worst accident rate in the world was found in the Commonwealth of Independent States, a number of ex-Soviet nations, which was 7.9 times worse than the global average at 6.43.

However, these numbers are skewed by the reduced numbers of Western-built aircraft in the region.

The Latin America and Caribbean region had a hull loss rate of 2.55, which was 3.1 times worse than the global average, and the Middle East and North Africa saw their accident rate worsen to 1.89.

Some of the prominent safety issues which emerged in 2008 were runway excursions, which accounted for 25% of all accidents, ground damage, which accounted for 17% of all accidents and deficient safety management at the airline level, which contributed to 30% of all accidents.

In response to these concerns, the IATA has developed a Runway Safety Toolkit, the IATA Safety Audit for Ground Operations, and incorporated a Safety Management Systems requirement into IOSA.

“Our record on safety is impressive,” Bisignani maintained. “But the accident in Buffalo last week and all the 502 fatalities in air accidents in 2008 are human tragedies reminding airlines, regulators and industry partners everywhere that safety is a constant challenge and we must always strive to do better.”

“Our target is zero accidents, and zero fatalities. Nothing less is an acceptable result.”

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