New Study: Air safety improved substantially in 2009
2010-02-18
Business travelers who spend a lot of time in the air may be able to breathe a sigh of relief this week. A new report from the International Air Travel Association (IATA) finds that, despite a number of high profile incidents, the number of aircraft crashes in 2009 fell to the second-lowest level in history.
The global accident rate showed a marked improvement over the rates of 2008 and 2007, though remained a touch shy of 2005, the safest air travel year on record, according to Reuters. In all, 2.3 billion people flew safely on roughly 35 million flights last year, with an incident rate of only 0.71 flights per million.
IATA hopes the study will allow airlines determine the best way to continue and improve safety procedures on domestic and international flights.
"Having made aviation the safest way to travel, further improvements will come only with careful data analysis," IATA's Director-General Giovanni Bisignani told the news provider. "We must understand the underlying safety risk trends, not just from the handful of accidents each year, but by bringing together and analyzing data from millions of safe flights."
There were only 90 accidents involving commercial aircraft during 2009, according to the new report.