Western air travel had its safest year to date says a new report from the International Air Transport Association (IATA) on Wednesday.
According to the IATA, there was only one accident for every 1.6 million flights in 2010 compared to the one to 1.4 million ratio in 2009. Both tallies only count Western-built jets.
In 2010, there were 17 accidents involving Western-built jets, down from 19, two less than in the previous year.
Accidents where the aircraft was destroyed or damaged dropped to their lowest rates since 2006. The global accident rate was 0.61 destroyed or damaged aircraft per million flights, beating the 0.65 record set four years ago.
However, for all aircraft, including aircraft not made in the West, the tallies actually went up. There were 94 accidents for all types of aircraft this year.
Of these accidents, 23 resulted in death versus 18 deaths in 2009. The total of aviation deaths rose from 786 in 2010 compared to 685 the previous year.
Africa continues to have the worst accident rating by region, followed by Latin America and the Caribbean. The report also finds that runway incidents accounted for 21 percent of all accidents last year.
By Adriana Padilla for PeterGreenberg.
Related Links on PeterGreenberg.com:
- Air Traffic Controller Mistakes Double As Serious Safety Incidents Reported
- Travel Detective Blog: Airline Safety Starts With Maintenance
- Air Travel – Airlines & Airports section
- Travel Safety & Security section
- Plane Crashes section
