Airline crashes decline 65 percent over past 10 years

Sept. 30, 2007, 10:30PM
Fatal airline crashes decline 65 percent over past 10 years
Explanation for the decrease lies partly in efforts to eliminate small problems early

By MATTHEW L. WALD
New York Times

WASHINGTON — After two infamous crashes in 1996 that together killed 375 people, a White House commission told the airline industry and its regulators to reduce the domestic rate of fatal accidents 80 percent over 10 years. That clock ended Sunday.

They have come close to reaching that goal. Barring a crash before midnight Sunday, the drop in the accident rate will be about 65 percent — to one fatal accident in about 4.5 million departures, from one in nearly 2 million in 1997.

There have been no fatal crashes involving scheduled flights this year in the U.S. and just one fatal accident: a mechanic who was trying to close the cabin door of a chartered Boeing 737 on the ground in Tunica, Miss., fell to the pavement during a rainstorm.

"This is the golden age of safety, the safest period, in the safest mode, in the history of the world," said Marion Blakey, the administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration, in a speech to an aviation group in Washington on Sept. 11.

Luck and technology

Some of the improvement may be luck, as there is an element of randomness to crashes. But part of the explanation certainly lies in the payoff from sustained efforts by American and many foreign airlines to identify and eliminate small problems that are common precursors to accidents.
Airlines around the world, even in less-developed nations, have also benefited from equipment improvements, such as cockpit instruments that help planes steer clear of mountains when visibility is poor and jet engines that are so reliable pilots can go through their entire careers without seeing one fail.

Some improvements have been as simple as better signs on taxiways to prevent planes from moving into the path of other aircraft.

"It's not one thing. It's a series of small things," said John Cox, who was an Air Line Pilots Association safety representative for 20 years.

Not all positive

Despite the safety improvements since then, not all the trends are positive. Airports have lately recorded a disturbing number of what they call "proximity events" because someone made a wrong turn or a controller made an error. On July 11, for example, a United plane in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., took a wrong turn onto a runway where a Delta Air Lines plane was supposed to land; the two came within 100 feet, according to the FAA.
"Probably the biggest threat of all, today, many, many people agree, is not so much a midair collision as a runway incursion incident," said Richard Healing, an aviation safety expert and former member of the National Transportation Safety Board.

FAA administrator

Read this today and thought to myself this is really a major achievement, especially given the various other pressures on the industry in recent years (cost pressures, security issues, etc.). I flew quite a bit more (especially longhaul) 10 years ago than I do now and remember back then they were predicting a pronounced increase in the number of accidents based simply on the then-current accident rate being applied to the growing number of flights around the world. While it's easy to thank new technologies for the decline in accidents, as someone who is not in the industry I think it's also important to thank those of you that work in business for running a safe operation, as people have obviously been a significant contributor to a lower accident rate as well.