As attractive as cheaptravel options such as cheap airplane tickets, discounttravel deals, and cheap vacation packages areto most would be travelers, everyone is always pleased to hear that airline accidentsare declining.
There were just eight accidental airline accidents lastyear, responsible for 161 passenger and crew deaths. 2015 witnessed the fewest crashes and deathssince at least 1947. Experts believethat continuing improvement in safety technology and aircraft design isresponsible for this progress.
Malicious acts resulted in far more deaths last year, suchas the ones where 374 people were killed when a Germanwings airline wasdeliberately flown into a mountainside in the French Alps last March and aRussian airline exploded over Egypt in October.
The death toll of the Malaysia Airlines plane thatdisappeared in 2014 and another that was shot down over Ukraine totaled 537compared with 436 accidental deaths that year.
These figures are for all types of airline flights,including cargo, positioning, training, and maintenance flights.
There were only 98 paying passengers killed in accidentslast year compared to 790 passengers killed in 2007 and an annual average of1,289 passengers killed in accidental crashes in the 1970s.
Airline safety has improved to the point where there arevery few fatal accidents in the air whereas flight security remains a very realconcern.
The rate of global fatal accidents for all types of airlineoperations last year was one per five million flights, the lowest rateever. The previous best year was in 2014with a fatal accident rate of one per 2.5 million flights.
Better engineering has made aircraft engines far safer thanearlier generations of planes. Howevermore needs to be done to identify and deal with disturbed pilots and to takesteps against acts of terrorism.
The Germanwings pilot Andreas Lubitz was able to concealhis mental problems even though his airline (as do others) continually evaluatespilots for signs of trouble. Pilots alsoare asked to evaluate each other.
We still do not know what caused Malaysia Airlines Flight370 to disappear while flying from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. The most commonly held belief by experts isthat this disappearance was the result of a deliberate act, probably by one ofits two pilots.
Pilots are highly trained to protect their passengers andtaught skills to deal with unanticipated events. They are also evaluated on how well they dealwith stress. Those who do not handlestress well are weeded out of the profession.
The Islamic State claimed credit for a bomb believed to beresponsible for blowing apart a MetroJet A320 over Egypt.
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