Flying remains extremely safe despite latest plane tragedies over Christmas
Long-term trend is towards ever-safer skies despite two aviation tragedies within four days over Christmas
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Your support makes all the difference.Families are grieving after two aviation tragedies within four days killed more than 200 passengers and crew. The Christmas Day crash of an Azerbaijan Airlines Embraer E190 was followed by the loss four days later of a Jeju Air Boeing 737.
The calamities come at the end of a year that began with a Japan Airlines Airbus A350 bursting into flames as it landed at Tokyo’s main airport, Haneda. All 379 passengers and crew escaped from the aircraft as it blazed.
Three days later, a door plug blew out from a Boeing 737 Max belonging to Alaska Airlines as it climbed from Portland airport in Oregon. Again, all the 177 on board survived after the emergency landing.
Add in the tragic loss in August of 62 passengers and crew aboard a Brazilian ATR72 domestic flight operated by Voepass, and the anxious traveller can see plenty of reasons to be fearful.
Yet despite the latest horrifying incident, flying remains far safer than other forms of transport; only rail rivals aviation for keeping passengers alive.
Each of the almost 280 fatalities in plane crashes in 2024 is a profound tragedy. Yet it equates to the number of lives lost on the roads worldwide in just two hours.
Decade after decade, aviation is becoming safer. No scheduled passenger jets were involved in fatal crashes during 2023. Only two fatal accidents happened in that year, both involving propeller aircraft on domestic flights, with 86 people losing their lives.
But as the aviation safety expert Adrian Young observed: “Both the number of accidents and fatalities are at a record low.”
All the dramatic aviation events of 2024 – fatal and otherwise – will be analysed minutely to understand what can be learnt to enhance future safety.
The survival of all on board the Japan Airlines plane can be traced directly to the lessons from the last fatal accident involving British Airways, almost 40 years ago. Fifty-five people died on a Boeing 737 when it caught fire on take-off, and new rules swiftly took effect to help passengers and crew escape from a blazing aircraft.
Investigators in Korea will be looking for evidence amid the wreckage of the Jeju Air Boeing 737 that may guide aviation safety in future.
Meanwhile, the pilot community are looking with concern at the Azerbaijan Airlines tragedy, in which 28 people died. The working assumption is that the jet was hit by shrapnel from an air defence system as it tried to land in Chechnya in southern Russia.
As the rate of accidents due to human factors and mechanical failure slows, the dangers of flying in conflict zones may be rising.
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