A series of high-profile plane crashes this year have left a lasting impression on the public. On January 2, Japan Airlines collided on the runway, killing five people, and days later Boeing Co. suffered a burst door plug. From the loss of wheels to this week’s turbulent Singapore Airlines flight that claimed the life of one person, the widely covered events have left the public wondering whether it is still safe to fly.
The reality, according to statistics, is that despite these tragedies, getting on a plane Boeing either Airbus SE It’s still exponentially safer than the ride to the airport. Last year there was not a single fatality among the 37 million commercial airline flights.
Although 2024 will not equal that record, it has been a normal year in terms of aviation safety. However, public perception remains nervous: US web searches for “flight safety” in March reached the highest level since October 2014, according to Google Trends.
That year, a decade ago, was especially negative for aviation. To the disappearance of flight 370 Malaysia Airlines in March it was followed by the downing of flight 17 of the same company over Ukraine in July and an accident AirAsia in December.
This year’s accidents have caused far fewer fatalities than in early 2014 or in 2019, when the second of two flights Boeing 737 Max crashed in March, killing 157 people in Ethiopia.
Five of the six people on board a turboprop Japan Coast Guard They lost their lives in early January when the plane ventured into the path of an Airbus A350 arriving in Tokyo. Although no one died in the January 5 structural failure of a 737 Max 9 operated by Alaska Air Group Inc. The accident dealt a serious blow to the credibility of Boeing and the confidence of the passengers.
Since then, a series of minor incidents, from a Delta Air Lines Inc. Boeing 757 up to a Boeing 757 which lost a nose wheel and a 737 Max United Airlines Holdings Inc. in Houston, have received extensive media coverage.
On the flight from London to Singapore This week, a 73-year-old Briton died of a suspected heart attack after the plane encountered severe turbulence. Several dozen people suffered potentially life-changing traumatic injuries, doctors said.
“There is reason for the public to be concerned, but I think the concern is greater because of the real attention that some news networks have paid,” he declared. John Gogliaaviation safety expert and former member of the National Transportation Safety Board. “The wheel that came off the plane would never have gone anywhere; in some local newspapers it may have been a 2.5cm column,” she added.
In fact, government statistics indicate that the United States is having a fairly normal year.
In the country, 11 accidents and incidents occurred on commercial passenger or cargo flights in the first quarter, according to the database of the NTSB. That figure is slightly above the average of 9.7 in the decade from 2010 to 2019.
Serious cases stood at four in the quarter, slightly above the average before Covid of 3.3. The figures are based on cases investigated by the NTSBwhich include all accidents and only some incidents, so numbers may vary.
Meanwhile, the Federal Aviation Administration reported progress in a problem area. The rate of serious runway incursions in the first quarter decreased by 59% compared to the same period in 2023, a historically high year for this type of events. The current rate for 2024 is below the annual average of 0.31 per million aircraft operations over the past decade, according to data provided to Bloomberg.
“Aviation is the safest way to travel and that is because we never take anything for granted,” said the FAAresponsible for airline safety in USA. “We are always looking for risks and ways to mitigate them,” she added.
The prolonged focus on Boeing has drawn a lot of attention to the plane maker, and some aviators have leaked their jets 737Max. However, many of the incidents have occurred with older aircraft, and are more likely to be due to an airline maintenance or operational problem than to the original design or build quality.
“In this environment, any operational event, no matter how routine, can attract excessive attention,” declared the company’s CEO, Dave Calhounat the company’s annual meeting held on May 17.
Many of the events that have worried aviators this year, from landing gear collapse to pilots overrunning the runway, are classified as incidents rather than “accidents,” which the International Civil Aviation Organization Defined as those in which a person is fatally or seriously injured, the aircraft suffers damage requiring repairs, or disappears.
That doesn’t mean there aren’t improvements to be made, according to Loren Groff, chief data scientist at the NTSB. He pointed to work being done to improve staffing and training of air traffic controllers following some recent mistakes and near-collisions on the runways.
“Overall, it’s amazing that the United States aviation system, and most of the world in general, can do something so complex so successfully,” Groff said. “Would you be afraid of aviation in some way? No, not at all,” he concluded.
(c) 2024, Bloomberg · Jinshan Hong
