Airline Accidents. Accident Rates

Aviation is a complex system. It includes aircraft, airport facilities, regulations, and operation procedures as well as personnel, such as flight crew, air traffic controllers, aircraft dispatchers, and maintenance workers. Civil aviation can be divided into two groups: commercial flights that transport people and goods to generate revenues and noncommercial flights that are operated by private pilots for pleasure or personal business. Commercial flights are operated by air carriers. Noncommercial flights are usually called general aviation. Air carriers may include major airlines, commuter airlines, and air taxis.

These subgroups of commercial aviation are classified according to aircraft capacities and other variables, and they operate under different regulations. Unless specified otherwise, the term airline in this article refers to major airlines, that is, aircraft operations with 10 or more passenger seats or 7500 payload-pounds of capacity. There are approximately 8200 airline aircraft in the United States, transporting approximately 600 million passengers and 14 million tons of goods each year.

An aviation accident is defined as an occurrence associated with the operation of an aircraft that results in fatal or serious injury to any person or aircraft damage requiring major repair or replacement. A serious injury is operationally defined as any injury that requires hospitalization for more than 48 h, that involves a fracture, or that causes severe hemorrhage. Aviation incidents refer to adverse events causing only minor personal injury or minor aircraft damage.

Accident Rates. Aviation is the safest mode of transportation. The rate of deaths per 100 million passenger miles is approximately 0.03 for airlines, compared with 0.9 for motor vehicles and 0.06 for trains. In 2004, air carriers in the United States made a total of 10.8 million departures and flew a total of 1.8 million hours, with 28 accidents and 14 fatalities. The rate of fatal accidents was 0.19 per 100 000 aircraft departures and 0.011 per 100000 flight hours.

Figure 1. Rates of total accidents and fatal accidents per 100 000 flight hours for air carriers, United States, 1965–2004. Data from U.S. Department of Transportation, Bureau of Transportation Statistics

Accident rates for airlines have decreased by 94% in the past four decades and have remained fairly stable since 1980 (Figure 1). General aviation and air taxis have much higher accident rates than airlines; approximately 94% of aviation accidents recorded in the United States involve noncommercial flights. In 2004, the rate of fatal accidents per 100 000 flight hours was 1.20 for general aviation and 0.78 for air taxis, which are 108 times and 71 times, respectively, the rate for airlines.