This year did not start well for aviation safety, with a runway collision at Haneda Airport in Tokyo and a piece of the fuselage of an Alaska Airlines 737 Max 9 exploding in the air in January.
Although no one died or suffered serious injuries in either incident, those who fear flying certainly panicked when they saw images of the damaged planes.
But a study published this Thursday (Feb.29) will calm the minds of those averse to flying.
Commercial airplanes continue to be the safest way to travel, and 2023 was the safest year to fly ever recorded in aviation history.
The IATA Annual Safety Report – compiled by the International Air Transport Association – has been tracking the evolution of commercial aviation safety since 1964.
Its data recorded 37 million flights in 2023 (jets and turboprops), a 17% increase compared to the previous year. However, despite this, 2023 had the lowest fatality risk and the lowest accident rate ever recorded.
“At this level of safety, on average, a person would have to fly every day for 103,239 years to suffer a fatal accident,” states the IATA report.
The rate of “all accidents” in 2023 was better than the previous year in all regions except North America and Asia-Pacific. There were a series of challenging situations on U.S. runways in 2023, with seven runway incursions – when planes come closer to each other than they should during landing or takeoff – recorded just in March of last year.
Europe has maintained a zero mortality risk since 2018. However, most non-fatal air incidents in the region were related to landing gear collapse.
“Challenges persist during critical phases of flight, especially during landing and takeoff, with more than half of all accidents occurring between 2014 and 2023 happening during these phases,” states IATA.
Africa had the highest accident rate in the world, with 6.38 accidents per million in 2023, although this number is better than the previous year and there have been no fatal accidents in the region since 2020.
Northeast Asia is the safest region in the world. Its accident rate dropped from 0.45 accidents per million to 0.00 in 2023, while the mortality risk fell from 0.23 in 2022 to 0.00 in 2023.
The collision in Tokyo at Haneda Airport in January 2024 will impact the safety performance of Northeast Asia this year, although the crew of Japan Airlines was praised for their excellent execution of the safety protocol, which prevented this specific disaster from turning into a much larger tragedy with fatalities.
Source: CNN