The skies are getting more crowded: every day, more than 8 million passengers use commercial airlines. In 2013, their total number exceeded a record 3 billion, and this growth was accompanied by a noticeable improvement in key aviation safety indicators. True, the total number of crashes (29) did not surpass the lowest level of the 21st century in 2012 (23 incidents), but the number of victims almost halved compared to the previous year. In 2012 there were 475, last year – 265. This is the best indicator since the official registration of aviation accidents began in 1950.
It should be noted that different sources use different calculation methods. The above figures are based on the methodology of the online portal Aviation Safety Network (Netherlands), which takes into account only passenger aircraft with more than 13 seats. The Hamburg-based Jacdec database starts counting from 20-seat aircraft and ends up with 251. IATA uses an even stricter methodology, which includes relatively large commercial airliners. IATA Director General Tony Tyler believes that the number of deaths in 2013 was 210 (compared to 402 the previous year).
Although general aviation remains outside such statistics in all cases, all sources note a general trend toward improved aviation safety indicators. And here a comparison with road transport is appropriate, which is clearly not in the latter's favor: experts estimate about 1.2 million road deaths worldwide in 2013. In Germany alone, the number of deaths last year was about 3,300, and in Russia in just the first half of the year, it was over 10,000.
In other words, statistically, we are much closer to death not in the air, but on the ground, but psychologically we are still more afraid of dying in a plane crash. And no numbers help here, although the director of IATA's European office for safety, Giancarlo Buono, claims that in 2013 there was one incident per 2.4 million flights. Reasoning mathematically, even someone who flies daily can fly without accidents for about 6,500 years. But mathematics is one thing, and life is quite another. Statistics are good only as long as they don't affect you personally: try talking about the high level of flight safety with the relatives of those who died recently in Kazan!
Overall aviation accident statistics have been improving worldwide since 1997, when 47 incidents were recorded with a total of 1,266 victims. However, this trend does not apply to all countries. Russian airlines, for example, are still considered unsafe in the world, second only to the African continent in this sad category. According to IATA, last year there were two tragic incidents in Russia with 59 deaths. The crash of a Boeing operated by Tatarstan Airlines claimed 50 lives and was the deadliest in the world in 2013. But the saddest thing is that too often the main cause of tragedy is inadequate pilot training. And we cannot be reassured by the fact that the situation is even worse in African countries.
This continent accounts for only 3% of all flights in the world, but they account for 20% of global air crashes. Airlines from 14 African countries are banned from flying to the European Union due to insufficient safety standards of their equipment and staff training. For the same reason, airlines from Nepal are also banned from flying to Europe.
Statistics on flight accidents suggest that long-haul flights are safer: 63% of victims are passengers of regional airlines on routes shorter than 800 km. The figures do not support the stereotypical view of the unreliability of low-cost carrier aircraft. Although many minor incidents have been recorded with them over the past decade and a half, the overall safety level remains acceptable.
Another stereotype concerns the safety of different flight phases, namely that the en-route phase is the safest. Last year's data, unfortunately, disprove this: in-flight incidents (8 of 29 crashes) rank second after the approach phase (13 of 29). The takeoff and landing phases, considered the most dangerous, accounted for only 3 and 4 incidents, respectively.
But as sad as the accident statistics may be, in 2013 they were the best in the modern history of air transport. By the way, this year civil aviation celebrates its centenary. The first commercial flight is believed to have taken place in January 1914 in the U.S. state of Florida. A seaplane of the St. Petersburg – Tampa Airboat Line delivered the only passenger, the mayor of St. Petersburg, to Tampa. The flight lasted 23 minutes and passed without incident.
Sergei PROKOSHENKO,
"Russkaya Germaniya".