Given that there are no commercial airline crashes for the entire year last year – will 2017 go down in history as the safest year for air travel?
By: Ringo Bones
Even though it is a
proven fact – statistically at least – that flying is the safest form of
travel, groups in charge of monitoring air safety are quite surprised that 2017
turned out to be the safest year for air travel given that not a single tragic airline
crash occurred for the entire year. There were no passenger jet crashes
anywhere in the world for the whole of 2017, according to separate reports made
by Dutch consultancy firm To70 and The Aviation Safety Network.
Despite of the tragic and scary chapter that we call 9/11,
the number of airliner accidents has been in a slow and steady decline during
the past 20 years. Harro Ranter, president of The Aviation Safety Network said:
“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 organizations such as ICAO, IATA, Flight
Safety Foundation and the aviation industry.”
The Dutch consultancy To70, estimated there was now one
fatal accident for every 16-million flights, although its report was compiled
before the Costa Rica crash occurred. While the Aviation Safety Network’s
report shows that the accident rate now stands at one fatal passenger flight
accident per 7,360,000 flights. If cargo planes were included, a report by the
Airline Safety Network shows that there were a total of 10 fatal accidents,
resulting in 79 deaths for the whole of 2017, compared with 16 accidents and
303 lives lost in 2016. The organization based its figures on incidents involving
civil aircraft certified to carry at least 14 people. Could civil aviation
industry’s safety record get better in the coming years? Sadly, fake president
Trump already claims that the 2017’s air travel safety record was the result of
his “presidency”.
