Seventy-two people were killed in a commercial plane crash worldwide in 2023. Making it the best year for aviation safety by some criteria, despite the strong post-pandemic recovery, as announced Wednesday the International Air Transport Association (Iata).
In its annual report, the main airline organization noted only one fatal accident, that of an ATR of the Nepalese company Yeti Airlines linking Kathmandu to Pokhara which crashed shortly before landing on January 15, 2023.
In total, the organization, which brings together 320 companies representing 83% of passenger traffic on the planet, counted 30 accidents last year causing damage of at least one million dollars or 10% of the residual value.
This includes regular or charter transport, passenger or freight aircraft, weighing more than 5.7 tonnes at takeoff, with propellers or jet engines.
Business, tourist or military aircraft are therefore excluded from these statistics.
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Five deaths since the start of the year
In 2022, Iata recorded 42 accidents, including five fatalities, with a total of 158 victims.
Over the period 2019-2023, the annual average is 38 accidents, including five fatalities, for 143 victims.
This improvement was obtained despite traffic increasing by 17% over one year to 37.7 million flights, a figure still lower than that of 2019, before the health crisis (46.8 million).
The accident rate stood at 0.8 per million flights, compared to 1.3 in 2022 and an average of 1.19 over the last five years, again according to Iata.
The risk of a fatal accident has fallen to 0.03 per million, compared to an average of 0.11 over five years.
A person who flies every day would take “
103,239 years on average to suffer a fatal accident
”, illustrated the association, welcoming a year marked by “
the best results ever obtained (...) according to certain criteria
”.
The plane “
remains
the safest mode of transport
”, welcomed the general director of Iata, Willie Walsh, while recalling that the first month of 2024 had been marked by “
two spectacular accidents
”, the collision on the ground followed by the fire of a Japan Airlines Airbus A350 at Tokyo-Haneda (five dead) and the tearing off of a door of an Alaska Airlines Boeing 737 MAX in flight.
This shows that “
there is always room for improvement
” and that “
safety should never be taken for granted
,” said the director general, quoted in a press release.
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