How 3 years of none fatal crashes earned Africa, Europe IATA safety rating
Revelations from the 2018 Airline Safety Performance ratings, recently released by the International Air Transport Association (IATA), have shown how Africa and Europe were seen as continents with safest skies in the last three years.
Otherwise, both continents did not experience any form of major accident or fatality within the period under review.
According to data released by IATA, the all-accident rate for African carriers was 2.71, a significant improvement over the rate of 6.80 for the previous five years.
The report made it clear that Africa was the only region to see a decline in the all-accident rate compared to 2017.
Details of the report revealed that the global safety performance of the commercial airline industry showed continuing safety improvements over the long term, but an increase in accidents compared to 2017.
It also noted that all accident rate (measured in accidents per one million flights) was 1.35, which was the equivalent of one accident for every 740,000 flights. This was an improvement over the all accident rate of 1.79 for the previous five-year period (2013-2017), but a decline compared to 2017’s record performance of 1.11.
The 2018 rate for major jet accidents (measured in jet hull losses per 1 million flights) was 0.19, which was the equivalent of one major accident for every 5.4 million flights. This was an improvement over the rate for the previous five-year period (2013-2017) of 0.29 but not as good as the rate of 0.12 in 2017.
However, Nigeria experienced two fatal turboprop accidents, one of which was the Overland aircraft that was razed in Lagos in October 2018, but none of the two accidents involved a scheduled passenger flight.
In his remarks, the Director-General and Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Alexandre de Juniac, hailed African carriers and urged them to progress toward world-class levels of safety with more investments in safety infrastructure and compliance.
While pointing out that there is need to raise safety performance on the continent’s turboprop fleet, De Juniac argued that “Global standards such as the IATA Operational Safety Audit (IOSA) are making a difference. Counting all accidents, the performance of African airlines on the IOSA registry was more than twice as good as non-IOSA airlines in the region.
According to him, “In parallel, African governments must accelerate the implementation of ICAO’s safety-related standards and recommended practices (SARPS). As of year-end 2017, only 26 African countries had at least 60 per cent SARPS implementation. They also should incorporate IOSA into their safety oversight systems.”
In 2018, there were 11 fatal accidents with 523 fatalities among passengers and crew. This compares with an average of 8.8 fatal accidents and approximately 234 fatalities per year in the previous five-year period (2013-2017).
Also In 2017, the industry experienced six fatal accidents with 19 fatalities, which was a record low. One accident in 2017 also resulted in the deaths of 35 persons on the ground.
IATA report further disclosed that “Last year some 4.3 billion passengers flew safely on 46.1 million flights. 2018 was not the extraordinary year that 2017 was. However, flying is safe, and the data tell us that it is getting safer.
“For example, if safety in 2018 had remained at the same level as 2013, there would have been 109 accidents instead of 62; and there would have been 18 fatal accidents, instead of the 11 that actually occurred.
“Flying continues to be the safest form of long distance travel the world has ever known. Based on the data, on average, a passenger could take a flight every day for 241 years before experiencing an accident with one fatality on board. We remain committed to the goal of having every flight takeoff and land safely,” IATA Director General noted.
