The drastic increase of fatalities in aircraft accidents (and why then we speak of a "huge progress" in aviation safety)

Last year, deaths due to aviation accidents increased sharply compared to 2017.

An Aviation Safety Network (ASN) report indicates that in 2018 556 people died in air accidents, compared to only 44 who died in 2017.

The year 2017 was the safest in history for the commercial airlines, which did not record any accidents with pbadenger aircraft.

ASN, based in the Netherlands, reported that in 2018 there was a total of 15 fatal accidents with pbadenger planes. Among the deadliest were:

• The Lion Air accident last October in Indonesia, in which 189 people died. A Boeing 737 Max crashed into the Java Sea shortly after leaving the capital, Jakarta. Then it was determined that the plane I was not in a state steal.

• The accident of Cubana de Aviación in May. The plane collapsed shortly after takeoff and 112 people died. It was decided that the cause was a human error
• In February, 66 people have died in an air crash in the Zagros Mountains, Iran.

• Fifty-one people were killed when a plane crashed while landing at Kathmandu airport in March.

"Huge progress"

Despite the numbers, 2018 is in third place in the years safer based on the number of fatal accidents, and the ninth safest in terms of the number of deaths.

According to the ANH, the panorama improved typically over the past 20 years.

The aviation consulting firm To70 estimates that the fatality rate for large commercial pbadenger flights is 0.36 per million flights, which equates to one fatal accident for each flight. 3 million.

"If the accident rate had remained equal that 10 years ago, there would have been 39 fatal accidents last year, "said ASN Executive Director Harro Ranter.

"At the rate of progress of the accident rate in 2000, there would have been 64 fatal accidents", which shows the enormous progress made in terms of Security in the last two decades ".

For ASN, one of the biggest safety concerns of the aviation sector is the so-called "Loss of control accidents" (LOC, for its acronym in English).

These types of accidents refer to a unrecoverable deviation the expected flight path, caused by mechanical failures, human actions or environmental disturbances.

Most of these accidents are fatal, says ASN.

LOCs accounted for at least 10 of the 25 accidents worse last five years.