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The crash of the Air France Flight 447 made me wonder about airplane crash statistics. I grabbed some crash statistics from the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) website on global air carrier crashes involving fatalities. Here is a graph of the data since 1982 along with passenger-miles flown each year to show the general trend of volume of air traffic:
I was actually quite surprised by this graph. Notice the big drop in crashes in 2002 and ever since. There was an 83% reduction in global fatal crashes since 2002 compared to the 2nd half of the 90's. That is pretty impressive. I wonder if 9/11 had an effect in focusing energy around airline security and safety. Here are some quotes from a USA Today article from January talking about an improvement in airline safety.
Since 2002, the risks of dying on a flight plunged to 19 per billion, an 86% drop from the 1990s. Government requirements during the past two decades have made planes safer in violent impacts and fires, reducing the likelihood of deaths, he says. Technology improvements, more reliable aircraft and better training also have helped reduce accidents.
...it's more likely for a young child to be elected president in his or her lifetime than to die on a single jet flight in the USA or in similar industrial nations in Europe, Canada or Japan.
Interesting and good news for someone who frequently travels by plane.
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3 comments:
There are more flights then ever before. This takes more air space and decreses space for birds and bats. What are the chances of an airline being hit by birds or bats causing enough damage to crash the plane??
Big T
I think what 9/11 did is make airlines ground and sell off older planes, reducing the fleet age and increasing the proportion of modern models (757 and newer).
Big T,
Not sure the chances of an airplane being hit by birds or bats specifically, but the data above speaks for itself, even with that added risk with more flights, the overall safety has still improved significantly.
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