Growth will require extra effort to contain airline accident numbers

Deputy Director of the Air Navigation Bureau at ICAO Headquarters in Montreal, Vince Galotti, shared some of the latest airline accident analysis at Safeskies 2011 in Canberra last week:

“For the six-year period from 2005 through 2010, runway safety related accidents accounted for almost 60 per cent of the total, followed by aircraft system component failures, in-flight turbulence, those classified as ‘others’, loss of control in flight, controlled flight into terrain; a small number of accidents for which the cause is unknown; and then in-flight fires…

“Runway safety accidents account for over half of the total number but they’re responsible for less than 30 per cent of the fatal accidents. Loss of control in flight and controlled flight into terrain each account for over 20 per cent of fatal accidents; a disproportionately high percentage given the low proportion of all accidents attributed to these two categories. Loss of control in flight is responsible for the highest percentage of fatalities with 30 per cent of the total, even though less than five per cent of all accidents were related to loss of control…

“Globally, the numbers of fatalities, accident rates and fatal accident rates are relatively stable with a slight upward trend.

“This region (Asia Pacific) is an extremely high growth region and accidents are trending upward. With the high growth in the region this is an indicator of risk and should be taken seriously. Fatal accidents remain constant but unevenly distributed within the region; and the three highest traffic states account for only a small percentage of fatal accidents…

“So going forward we need to focus on effective action to improve safety and performance. We have to address the main killers and reduce disparities in the level of safety performance between regions and states.

“You have airlines flying from very developed countries into states with very, very poor air traffic management systems, but at the same time many states won’t allow airlines from states that have poor safety oversight performance into their countries.

We have to harmonise the way that we measure performance technically and institutionally. If we don’t speak the same language and use the same taxonomies, if the databases can’t talk to each other then there’s a lot of wasted data…

“And we need strategies to address safety issues tailored to the needs of the regions or the states…

“We are developing action plans for the space that we think needed the most work and we’re pooling our resources so that we come with one action plan that addresses infrastructure, safety oversight, training, licensing and so forth.”

It's an important message, highlighting just how much remains to be done to achieve global harmonisation of aviation safety.