EU Aviation Getting Safer
The 2012 annual safety review from the European Aviation Safety Agency shows fewer fatal accidents involving helicopters and general aviation aircraft that the year before.
The European Aviation Safety Agency has published its annual safety review for 2012, showing there were 34 accidents involving commercial air transport airplanes during the year, only one of which involved a fatality. The person killed was a ground operator who died during aircraft loading, the review states.
It covers a year when 10.5 million flights carried 925 million passengers and 14.5 million tonnes of cargo in EASA member states, below the peak of 11.2 million flights during 2008.
An average of 25 accidents per year, including three fatal accidents, from 2001 to 2010 involved commercial air transport airplanes. The most common type of accident is an "abnormal runway contact," while the most common type of fatal accident is a "loss of control in flight." For commercial transport helicopters averaged 13 accidents, three of them fatal, between 2001 and 2010, but there were 11 accidents, of which two were fatal, in 2012.
General aviation fatal accidents declined by 7 percent. "However, exposure data for these aircraft is not available so it is not known whether there has been less general aviation activity as a result of the economic downturn and poor weather in 2012," the report's Executive Summary states.