Air Accident

An aviation accident is an event during aircraft operation that results serious injury, death, or significant destruction. An aviation incident is any operating event that compromises safety but does not escalate into an aviation accident. Preventing both accidents and incidents is the primary goal of aviation safety.

One of the earliest recorded aviation accidents occurred on May 10, 1785, when a hot air balloon crashed in Tullamore, County Offaly, Ireland. The resulting fire seriously damaged the town, destroying over 130 homes. The first accident involving a powered aircraft occurred on September 17, 1908, when a Wright Model A crashed at Fort Myer, Virginia, USA. The pilot and co-inventor, Orville Wright, was injured, and the passenger, Signal Corps Lieutenant Thomas Selfridge, was killed.

Definitions

According to Annex 13 of the Convention on International Civil Aviation, an aviation accident is an occurrence associated with the operation of an aircraft, which takes place from the time any person boards the aircraft with the ''intention of flight'' until all such persons have disembarked, and in which (a) a person is fatally or seriously injured, (b) the aircraft sustains significant damage or structural failure, or (c) the aircraft goes missing or becomes completely inaccessible. Annex 13 defines an ''aviation incident'' as an occurrence, other than an accident, associated with the operation of an aircraft that affects or could affect the safety of operation.

A ''hull loss'' occurs if an aircraft is damaged beyond repair, is lost, or becomes completely inaccessible.

History

The first aircraft accident in which 200 or more people died occurred on March 3, 1974, when 346 died in the crash of Turkish Airlines Flight 981. , there have been a total of 34 aviation incidents in which 200 or more people have died.

The period from 1958 to 1968 saw tremendous growth in aviation. Improvements in aviation safety and accident investigation procedures were rapidly advancing. In 1963, the Civil Aeronautics Board, under the leadership of then Deputy Director Bobbie R. Allen, established the National Aircraft Accident Investigation School in Oklahoma City.

The ICAO's third accident investigation division meeting, held in Montreal, Canada, in January 1965, laid the foundation for accident investigations throughout the world. The proposals were presented by the Director of the Civil Aeronautics Board Bureau of Safety, Bobbie R. Allen, who headed the U.S. delegation. The U.S. formally adopted the proposals at the White House on December 1, 1965.

The top 10 countries with the highest number of fatal civil airliner accidents from 1945 to 2021 are the United States, Russia, Canada, Brazil, Colombia, United Kingdom, France, Indonesia, Mexico, and India. The United Kingdom is noted to have the highest number of air crashes in Europe, with a total of 110 air crashes within the time period, and Indonesia is the highest in Asia at 104, followed by India at 95.

The most fatalities on board a single aircraft are the 520 fatalities of the 1985 Japan Air Lines Flight 123 accident. The largest loss of life in a single aviation accident are the 583 fatalities of the 1977 Tenerife airport disaster, in which two Boeing 747s collided. The largest loss of life overall in a collective incident are the 2,996 fatalities in the coordinated terrorist destruction of airplanes and occupied buildings in the 2001 September 11 attacks, the first plane to be hijacked and crashed as part of the attack, American Airlines Flight 11, was alone responsible for an estimated 1,700 fatalities in total, making it the single deadliest aviation disaster in history.

September 11 attacks

The deadliest aviation-related disaster regarding fatalities both on board the aircraft and casualties on the ground, was the destruction of the World Trade Center in New York City on September 11, 2001. On that morning, four commercial jet airliners on transcontinental flights from East Coast airports to California were hijacked after takeoff. The four hijacked aircraft were subsequently crashed in a series of four coordinated suicide attacks against major American landmarks by 19 Islamist terrorists affiliated with Al-Qaeda. American Airlines Flight 11 and United Airlines Flight 175, both regularly scheduled domestic transcontinental flights from Boston to Los Angeles, were hijacked by five men each, with the assigned pilot hijacker taking control of the flight, before being intentionally crashed into the North and South Towers of the World Trade Center, respectively, destroying both buildings in less than two hours. The World Trade Center crashes killed 2,753. As both planes were carrying a combined total of 157 occupants, the vast majority of fatalities were the occupants of the two towers and the emergency personnel responding to the disaster. In addition, 184 were killed by the impact of American Airlines Flight 77, which crashed into the Pentagon in Arlington County, Virginia, causing severe damage and partial destruction to the building's west side. The crash of United Airlines Flight 93 into a field in Somerset County, Pennsylvania, which occurred as passengers attempted to retake control of the aircraft from the hijackers, killed all 40 passengers and crew aboard the aircraft. This brought the total number of casualties of the September 11 attacks to 2,996 (including the 19 terrorist hijackers). As deliberate terrorist acts, the 9/11 crashes were not classified as accidents, but as mass-killing. The events were treated by the member nations of NATO as an act of war and terrorism. The war on terror was subsequently launched by NATO in response to the attacks, eventually leading to the death of Al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden, who orchestrated the 9/11 attacks.

Tenerife disaster

The Tenerife airport disaster on March 27, 1977, remains the accident with the highest number of airliner passenger fatalities. 583 people died when a KLM Boeing 747 attempted to take off and collided with a taxiing Pan Am 747 at Los Rodeos Airport on the Canary Island of Tenerife, Spain. All 234 passengers and 14 crew of the KLM aircraft died and 335 of the 396 passengers and crew of the Pan Am aircraft died. Pilot error was the primary cause; the KLM captain mistakenly believed he had received air traffic control clearance and initiated takeoff. Other contributing factors were a terrorist incident at Gran Canaria Airport that had caused many flights to be diverted to Los Rodeos, a small airport not well equipped to handle aircraft of such size, dense fog, poor radio phraseology, and controller distraction. The KLM flight crew could not see the Pan Am aircraft on the runway until immediately before the collision. The accident had a lasting influence on the industry, particularly in the area of communication. An increased emphasis was placed on using standardized phraseology in air traffic control (ATC) communication by both controllers and pilots alike. " Cockpit Resource Management" has also been incorporated into flight crew training. The captain is no longer considered infallible, and combined crew input is encouraged during aircraft operations.

Japan Air Lines Flight 123

The crash of Japan Air Lines Flight 123 on August 12, 1985, has the highest number of fatalities for any single-aircraft accident: 520 people died aboard a Boeing 747. The aircraft experienced explosive decompression due to an improperly repaired aft pressure bulkhead, leading to the destruction of most of its vertical stabilizer and severing all hydraulic lines, rendering the 747 nearly uncontrollable. Pilots were able to keep the plane flying for 32 minutes after the mechanical failure before crashing into a mountain. All 15 crew members and 505 of the 509 passengers aboard died.Aircraft Accident Investigation Report Japan Air Lines Co., Ltd. Boeing 747 SR-100, JA8119 Gunma Prefecture, Japan August 12, 1985
." 22 (33/332). Retrieved August 18, 2010. Japanese military personnel inaccurately assumed, during a helicopter flyover of the impact site, that there were no survivors. Rescue operations were delayed until the following morning. Medical providers involved in rescue and analysis operations determined that several passengers likely survived the impact and probably would have survived the incident had rescue operations not been delayed. Four passengers survived the incident in its entirety, meaning that they were alive when discharged from the hospital.

Other crashes with death tolls of 200 or more

Safety

In over one hundred years of implementation, aviation safety has improved considerably. In modern times, two major manufacturers still produce heavy passenger aircraft for the civilian market: Boeing in the United States, and the European company Airbus. Both of these manufacturers place a huge emphasis on the use of aviation safety equipment, now a billion-dollar industry in its own right; safety is a key selling point for these companies, as they recognize that a poor safety record in the aviation industry is a threat to corporate survival.

Some major safety devices now required in commercial aircraft are:
* Evacuation slides, to aid rapid passenger exit from an aircraft in an emergency situation
* Advanced avionics, incorporating computerized auto-recovery and alert systems
* Turbine engines with improved durability and failure containment mechanisms
* Landing gear that can be lowered even after loss of power and hydraulics

Measured on a passenger-distance calculation, air travel is the safest form of transportation available: Figures mentioned are the ones shared by the air industry when quoting air safety statistics. A typical statement, e.g., by the BBC: "UK airline operations are among the safest anywhere. When compared against all other modes of transport on a fatality per mile basis, air transport is the safest – six times safer than travelling by car and twice as safe as rail."

When measured by fatalities per person transported, however, buses are the safest form of transportation. The number of air travel fatalities per person are surpassed only by bicycles and motorcycles. This statistic is used by the insurance industry when calculating insurance rates for air travel.

For every billion kilometers traveled, trains have a fatality rate that is 12 times higher than that of air travel, and the fatality rate for automobiles is 62 times greater than for air travel. By contrast, for every billion journeys taken, buses are the safest form of transportation; using this measure, air travel is three times more dangerous than car transportation, and almost 30 times more dangerous than travelling by bus.

A 2007 study by ''Popular Mechanics'' magazine found that passengers sitting at the back of an aeroplane are 40% more likely to survive a crash than those sitting at the front. The article quotes Boeing, the FAA, and a website on aircraft safety, all of which claim that there is no "safest" seat. The study examined 20 crashes, not taking into account the developments in safety after those accidents. However, a flight data recorder is usually mounted in the aircraft's empennage (tail section) where it is more likely to survive a severe crash.

Between 1983 and 2000, the survival rate for people in U.S. plane crashes was greater than 95 percent.

Global Aeronautical Distress and Safety System

In an effort to prevent incidents such as the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, a new standard has been issued requiring all commercial aircraft to report their position every 15 minutes to air traffic controllers regardless of the country of origin. Introduced in 2016 by the ICAO, the regulation has no initial requirement for any new aircraft equipment to be fitted. The standard is part of a long-term plan, called the Global Aeronautical Distress and Safety System (GADSS), which will require new aircraft to be equipped with data broadcast systems that are in constant contact with air traffic controllers. The GADSS is similar to the Global Maritime Distress and Safety System (GMDSS) used for maritime safety.

Aviation Safety Reporting System

The Aviation Safety Reporting System (ASRS) collects voluntarily submitted aviation safety incident/situation reports from pilots, controllers and others. The ASRS uses reports to identify system deficiencies, issue alert messages, and produce two publications, ''CALLBACK'', and ''ASRS Directline''. The collected information is made available to the public, and is used by the FAA, NASA and other organizations working in research and flight safety.

Statistics

Bureau of Aircraft Accidents Archives (B3A)

The Bureau of Aircraft Accidents Archives (B3A), formerly known as the Aircraft Crashes Record Office (ACRO), a non-government organization based in Geneva, Switzerland, compiles statistics on aviation accidents of aircraft capable of carrying more than six passengers, excluding helicopters, balloons, and combat aircraft. ACRO only considers crashes in which the aircraft has suffered such damage that it is removed from service, which will further reduce the statistics for incidents and fatalities compared to some other data. The total fatalities due to aviation accidents since 1970 are 83,772. The total number of incidents are 11,164.

According to ACRO, recent years have been considerably safer for aviation, with fewer than 170 incidents every year between 2009 and 2017, compared to as many as 226 as recently as 1998.

The annual fatalities figure is less than 1,000 for ten of the fourteen years between 2007 and 2020, the year 2017 experiencing the lowest number of fatalities, at 399, since the end of World War II.

2014 included the disappearance of flight MH370 over the Indian Ocean and the shootdown of flight MH17 as part of the war in Donbas. The total number of fatalities in 2014 was 869 more than in 2013.

Deaths and incidents in the world per year according to ACRO and Bureau of Aircraft Accident Archives data, :

(Data have significantly changed since November 2015 after a major upgrade to the death rate and crash rate web pages. This may reflect a change between a static and dynamic web page, where data were made to be automatically updated based on the incidents in their archives.)

Annual Aviation Safety Review (EASA)

The European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) is tasked by Article 15(4) of Regulation (EC) No 216/2008 of the European Parliament and of the Council of February 20, 2008, to provide an annual review of aviation safety.

The Annual Safety Review presents statistics on European and worldwide civil aviation safety. Statistics are grouped according to type of operation, for instance, commercial air transport, and aircraft category, such as aeroplanes, helicopters, gliders, etc.
The Agency has access to accident and statistical information collected by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO). States are required, according to ICAO Annex 13, on Aircraft Accident and Incident Investigation, to report to ICAO information, on accidents and serious incidents to aircraft with a maximum certificated take-off mass (MTOM) over 2250 kg. Therefore, most statistics in this review concern aircraft above this mass. In addition to the ICAO data, a request was made to the EASA Member States to obtain light aircraft accident data. Furthermore, data on the operation of aircraft for commercial air transport were obtained from both ICAO and the NLR Air Transport Safety Institute.

Investigation

Annex 13 of the Chicago Convention provides the international Standards And Recommended Practices that form the basis for air accident and incident investigations by signatory countries, as well as reporting and preventive measures. The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) is specifically focused on preventing accidents, rather than determining liability.

Australia

In Australia, the Australian Transport Safety Bureau is the federal government body responsible for investigating transport-related accidents and incidents, covering air, sea, and rail travel. Formerly an agency of the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government, in 2010, in the interests of keeping its independence it became a stand-alone agency.

Brazil

In Brazil, the Aeronautical Accidents Investigation and Prevention Center (CENIPA) was established under the auspices of the Aeronautical Accident Investigation and Prevention Center, a Military Organization of the Brazilian Air Force (FAB). The organization is responsible for the activities of aircraft accident prevention, and investigation of civil and military aviation occurrences. Formed in 1971, and in accordance with international standards, CENIPA represented a new philosophy: investigations are conducted with the sole purpose of promoting the "prevention of aeronautical accidents".

Canada

In Canada, the Transportation Safety Board of Canada (TSB), is an independent agency responsible for the advancement of transportation safety through the investigation and reporting of accident and incident occurrences in all prevalent Canadian modes of transportation – marine, air, rail and pipeline.

China

In China, the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) is solely responsible for all air investigations and safety inside the country after the split from the formal CAAC Airlines.

Ethiopia

In Ethiopia, the Civil Aviation Accident Prevention and Investigation Bureau of the Ethiopian Civil Aviation Authority (ECAA), which is an agency of the Ministry of Transport and Communications, conducts aircraft accident investigations in Ethiopia or involving Ethiopian aircraft.

France

In France, the agency responsible for investigation of civilian air crashes is the Bureau d'Enquêtes et d'Analyses pour la Sécurité de l'Aviation Civile (BEA). Its purpose is to establish the circumstances and causes of the accident and to make recommendations for their future avoidance.

Germany

In Germany, the agency for investigating air crashes is the Federal Bureau of Aircraft Accidents Investigation (BFU). It is an agency of the Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure. The focus of the BFU is to improve safety by determining the causes of accidents and serious incidents and making safety recommendations to prevent recurrence.

Hong Kong

The Air Accident Investigation Authority (AAIA) is responsible for investigating civil aviation accidents in Hong Kong, as well as those in other territories involving a Hong Kong-registered aircraft. It is led by Darren Straker, Chief Inspector of Accidents, and headquartered at Hong Kong International Airport. AAIA was established in 2018 in response to an ICAO directive instructing that member states maintain air accident investigation authorities that are independent of civil aviation authorities and related entities. Prior to 2018, accident investigation duties were held by the Civil Aviation Department's Flight Standards & Airworthiness Division and Accident Investigation Division.

India

Until May 30, 2012, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation investigated incidents involving aircraft. Since then, the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau has taken over investigation responsibilities.

Indonesia

In Indonesia, the National Transportation Safety Committee (NTSC; , KNKT) is responsible for the investigation of incidents and accidents, including air accidents. Its aim is the improvement of transportation safety, not just aviation, in Indonesia.

Italy

Created in 1999 in Italy, the Agenzia Nazionale per la Sicurezza del Volo (ANSV), has two main tasks: conducting technical investigations for civil aviation aircraft accidents and incidents, while issuing safety recommendations as appropriate; and conducting studies and surveys aimed at increasing flight safety. The organization is also responsible for establishing and maintaining the "voluntary reporting system". Although not under the supervision of the Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport, the ANSV is a public authority under the oversight of the Presidency of the Council of Ministers of Italy.

Japan

The Japan Transport Safety Board investigates aviation accidents and incidents. The Aircraft Accident Investigation Commission investigated aviation accidents and incidents in Japan until October 1, 2001, when the Aircraft and Railway Accidents Investigation Commission (ARAIC) replaced it, and the ARAIC did this function until October 1, 2008, when it merged into the JTSB.

Malaysia

Established in 2016, the Air Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) Malaysia is the main investigation body for aircraft accident/incident. Separate from Civil Aviation Authority of Malaysia (CAAM) and Malaysian Aviation Commission (MAVCOM) that is the national aviation authority and commission that oversee aviation economy respectively. The AAIB operates from the ministry of transport headquarters in Putrajaya, and its black box laboratory situated in STRIDE, the ministry of defenses research institute. AAIB Malaysia is teamed by civilians and seconded Royal Malaysian Airforce senior officer and a group of pool investigators from Malaysia Institute of Aviation Technology

Mexico

In Mexico, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGAC) investigates aviation accidents.

Netherlands

In the Netherlands, the Dutch Safety Board

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