Commercial aviation chalks up its safest year ever

A December 31 accident in Costa Rica hasn’t stopped 2017 being the safest year on record for commercial aviation, according to preliminary data from the Aviation Safety Network. The independent safety database service said it recorded a total of 10 fatal commercial  aircraft accidents in 2017 involving cargo planes or civil aircraft capable of carrying 14 or more passengers. These produced 44 occupant fatalities and 35 deaths on the ground. The figures translated into one fatal passenger aircraft accident per 7.36 million flights, based on expected worldwide air traffic of 36.8 million flights. Read: World's first country and airline safety comparison tool. They included 12 people killed on Sunday in a Nature Air Cessna 208B Grand Caravan crash in the mountainous Punta Islita of Costa Rica, about 230 km west of the capital of San Jose. However, they did not include military transport accidents such as the June 7 crash of a Myanmar Air Force Y-8F transport plane that killed 122. The low figures prompted the ASN to pronounce  2017 the safest year ever in terms of both the number of fatal accidents and fatalities. It was also a significant improvement on 2016’s 16 accidents and 303 deaths and part of a continuing trend. “Since 1997 the average number of airliner accidents has shown a steady and persistent decline, for a great deal thanks to the continuing safety-driven efforts by international aviation organisations such as ICAO, IATA, Flight Safety Foundation and the aviation industry,’’ ASN president Harro Ranter said. Five of the accidents involved cargo flights and five were passenger flights involving propeller-driven aircraft. The ASN,  part of the Flight Safety Foundation,  noted the industry had experienced a record 398 days without a passenger jet airliner accident up to December 31. “Additionally, a record period of 792 days has passed since the previous civil aircraft accident claiming over 100 lives,’’ it said. About one in 10 of the accidents involved an airline on the European Union’s “blacklist". The EU Air Safety List Annex A lists all airlines banned from operating in Europe while a separate list (Annex B) includes airlines that are restricted from operating under certain conditions. The current Annex A "blacklist" includes Venezuela’s Avior Airlines, Suriname’s Blue Wing Airlines, Iran Aseman Airlines ,  Iraqi Airways, Nigeria’s Med-View Airline and Air Zimbabwe. It also includes all carriers certified by authorities in Afghanistan, Nepal, the Kyrgyz  Republic and a number of African countries such as Equitorial Guinea, Eritrea, Libya and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Also banned are Indonesian carriers other than Garuda Indonesia, Airfast Indonesia, Ekspres Transportasi Antarbenua, Indonesia Air Asia, Citilink, Lion Air and Batik Air.