One fatal accident every 5 million flights
It is a truth that we hammer home after every air accident: the plane is the safest means of transport in the world in front of the train, and far in front of the bus, the boat, the car and the motorcycle.
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According to the risk of death for 2019, on average, a passenger should fly every day for 535 years before experiencing an accident causing at least one death on board
", underlines IATA, the International Civil Aviation Association , in its 2019 Airline Safety Report.
That year, 23 airliners crashed causing the death of 289 people, said the Aviation Safety Network.
A drop in the bucket considering the 4.5 billion passengers carried and the 39 million flights made that year.
By comparison, 3,239 people have died in a car accident in France alone.
According to an aviation safety report written by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGAC), in 2019, there were 0.21 fatal passenger accidents per million flights and 0.15 fatal passenger accidents per billion km flown. .
In other words, a fatal accident occurs every 5 million flights.
The report also recalls that no French carrier was involved in an accident in 2019, whether in France or abroad.
Read also: Five quick tips to calm your fear of flying
An airplane is designed to fly with a single engine
For various reasons (fuel leak, bird strike, weather, etc.), a reactor can stop working or catch fire in mid-flight, despite very strict maintenance procedures.
Airliners are certified to take off, fly and land even with a single working engine, including four-engined aircraft like the A380 or the Boeing 747.
Nevertheless, when the situation arises and for safety reasons, pilots usually choose to make an emergency landing, either returning to the point of origin or diverting to another airport.
This was the case a few weeks ago with a United Airlines flight: the crew of a Boeing 777 turned around after a fire broke out on the right engine shortly after takeoff from Denver.
The fact remains that losing an engine during a flight remains relatively rare, not to mention that the reactors are more and more efficient.
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Planes suffer 30,000 bird collisions each year without causing an accident.
Reactors have long been designed to ingest 750 kg of hail in 30 seconds,
”recalls Xavier Tytelman, aeronautical consultant and co-founder of the Airplane Fear Treatment Center (CTPA).
Read also: Discover the "black list" of airlines to avoid abroad
An airplane can hover over 200 km
If stopping one engine is a rare occurrence, the failure of two engines is even more so.
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When that happens, the plane doesn't fall like a stone.
As long as the plane has speed, the air flows above and below its wing and it is able to fly,
”insists Xavier Tytelman.
This is how it is able to travel several hundred kilometers before the pilot finds an airport or flat land to land, or even a body of water to land on.
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The Airbus A320s and the Boeing 737s have a fineness of 20, which means that when they descend one meter, they advance 20 meters.
Thus, an airplane which flies at its cruising altitude (10 km) can hover for around 200 km,
”he continues.
On some planes, the fineness exceeds 30, which allows them to glide for at least 300 km.
The history of civil aviation has been marked by a few cases of gliding.
The best-known example is that of Air Transat flight 236 which, on August 24, 2001, ran out of kerosene over the Atlantic, while it was connecting Toronto to Lisbon.
The A330 flew without an engine for 21 minutes over 120 km before landing on an island in the Portuguese archipelago of the Azores.
Among the 306 passengers, including 13 crew members, only 18 were injured and the aircraft landed without major damage.
Read also: Toronto-Lisbon flight: 21 minutes without engines over the Atlantic
