Air accidents fell in 2016 compared to the 2015 level, explains the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) in its Preliminary Safety Review’ – 2017, published on 20 February, but serious incidents increased over the same period.
The document covers the EASA’s 32 member countries. In 2016, there were 16 accidents and 100 serious incidents, 3 and 16 per million flights respectively. The accident rate recorded by the agency is 0.0003% of total flights. Imbalances due to the planes’ load, intrusions on runways and breakdowns in aircraft systems are the three main causes of serious incidents and accidents, explains EASA in the report.
The agency says the results are mixed since although the number of accidents fell by 43% on 2015, the number of serious incidents increased by 38% over the same period. The agency says that it will be carrying out an in-depth analysis of the reasons for the hike in serious incidents.
Record low number of air accidents globally. The EASA study reveals that 2016 had the lowest level of air accidents ever recorded in the world, with only eight accidents (killing 255). Two of these eight fatal accidents occurred in EASA member countries.
The year with the highest number of fatal accidents was 2010, which saw 28 aviation accidents, killing 810 people. The year with the lowest number of air accident deaths was 2013 (185). (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)