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Reports: Airline Industry Is at Its “Safest”

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2012 proves to be a record safe year for air travel.
2012 proves to be a record safe year for air travel.
It’s official: airline travel has never been safer.

Tuesday, February 2012 marks an unparalleled record in aviation history: it has been four years since the last crash of a commercial airliner.

The last fatal accident occurred on Feb. 12, 2009, when a Colgan Air Flight 3407 crashed outside of Buffalo, leaving 50 passengers dead. The cause of the disaster: ice forming on the plane’s wings. Since then it’s been over a decade since the last plane crash occurred in the US, reports the New York Times reports.

“Overall, it was the certainly the safest year ever,” Paul Hayes, director of safety at Ascend, told the Wall Street Journal. “Last year was almost twice as safe as 2011, which itself had previously attained the distinction of being twice as safe as the year before,” Hayes said.

In 2012, the statistics were impressive: there was one fatal accident per 2.5 million flights around the world, making it the safest year for air travelers since 1945, according to the Aviation Safety Network. Things looked different just two decades ago: more than 2,000 people died in air crashes worldwide in 1985, including a frightful accident involving a Boeing 747 in which 520 people died instantaneously.

‘‘The lessons of accidents used to be written in blood, where you had to have an accident, and you had to kill people to change procedures, or policy, or training,’’ said Deborah Hersman, chairwoman of the National Transportation Safety Board. ‘‘That’s not the case anymore.”

On a global scale, flying has become increasing reliable, so much so that a traveler could board a plan every day for 14,000 years without every being in an accident, according to the International Air Transport Association.

There are many reasons for this: advanced navigation technology and improved sharing of flight information and hazards among regulators and airlines, according to air safety experts.

But the good news isn’t a sign to slow down progress, said US Airways pilot Chesley B. Sullenberger III, claiming “it’s important not to define safety as the absence of accidents.”

Mr. Sullenberger became a hero when he landed an Airbus A320 in the Hudson River in January 2009 after both engines lost power. All 155 passengers and crew escaped.

“When we’ve been through a very safe period, it is easy to think it’s because we are doing everything right. But it may be that we are doing some things right, but not everything. We can’t relax,” he said.

 

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