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45-402: The Flight Safety Foundation ( FSF ) is a non-profit, international organization concerning research, education, advocacy, and communications in the field of aviation safety . FSF brings together aviation professionals to help solve safety problems and bring an international perspective to aviation safety-related issues for the public. Since its founding in 1945, the foundation has acted as

90-445: A frequent-flyer program mileage award are usually included. This term is used in the transportation industry, in particular in traffic measures such as revenue passenger kilometer (RPK) and revenue passenger mile (RPM). Revenue passenger kilometres (RPKs) and revenue passenger miles (RPMs) are measures of traffic for an airline flight, bus , or train calculated by multiplying the number of revenue-paying passengers aboard

135-602: A Transcontinental & Western Air Fokker F-10 carrying Knute Rockne , coach of the University of Notre Dame 's football team, reinforced all-metal airframes and led to a more formal accident investigation system. On 4 September 1933, a Douglas DC-1 test flight was conducted with one of the two engines shut down during the takeoff run, climbed to 8,000 feet (2,438 metres), and completed its flight, proving twin aircraft engine safety. With greater range than lights and weather immunity, radio navigation aids were first used in

180-580: A catastrophic engine failure on Southwest Airlines Flight 1380 in April 2018. Another aspect of safety is protection from intentional harm or property damage , also known as security . The terrorist attacks of 2001 are not counted as accidents. However, even if they were counted as accidents they would have added about 1 death per billion person-miles. Two months later, American Airlines Flight 587 crashed in New York City, killing 265 people, including 5 on

225-610: A certain mode of travel can be measured: (1) deaths per billion typical journeys taken, (2) deaths per billion hours traveled, and (3) deaths per billion kilometers traveled. The following table displays these statistics for the United Kingdom (1990–2000), and has been appended. (Note that aviation safety does not include travelling to the airport.) The first two statistics are computed for typical travels by their respective forms of transport, so they cannot be used directly to compare risks related to different forms of transport in

270-491: A lightning strike on an airplane is rare. Modern airliners like the Boeing 787 Dreamliner with exteriors and wings made from carbon-fiber-reinforced polymer have been tested and shown to receive no damage from lightning strikes during testing. Ice and snow can be major factors in airline accidents. In 2005, Southwest Airlines Flight 1248 slid off the end of a runway after landing in heavy snow conditions, killing one child on

315-596: A non-profit, independent clearinghouse to disseminate safety information, identify threats to safety, and recommend practical solutions. Today, the foundation provides leadership to more than 1000 members in more than 100 countries. The Aviation Crash Injury Research (AvCIR) Division initiated by Hugh DeHaven became part of FSF in April 1959, being transferred from Cornell University . The main foundation's stated objectives are to: In partnership with aviation community, FSF organizes four annual summit: FSF also organizes and sponsors smaller, regional safety events throughout

360-410: A particular travel "from A to B". For example, these statistics suggest that a typical flight from Los Angeles to New York would carry a larger risk factor than a typical car travel from home to office. However, car travel from Los Angeles to New York would not be typical; that journey would be as long as several dozen typical car travels, and thus the associated risk would be larger as well. Because

405-558: A perspective to the realm of everyday transportation, air travel is taken to include only standard civil passenger aviation, as offered commercially to the general public. Military and special-purpose aircraft are excluded. Between 1990 and 2015, there were 1874 commuter and air taxi accidents in the U.S. of which 454 (24%) were fatal, resulting in 1296 deaths, including 674 accidents (36%) and 279 fatalities (22%) in Alaska alone. The number of deaths per passenger-mile on commercial airlines in

450-459: A system, from 75% engineering and 25% certification in past years. It calls for a global harmonization between certifying authorities to avoid redundant engineering and certification tests rather than recognizing the others approval and validation. Groundings of entire classes of aircraft out of equipment safety concerns is unusual, but this has occurred to the de Havilland Comet in 1954 after multiple crashes due to metal fatigue and hull failure,

495-444: Is a person who travels in a vehicle , but does not bear any responsibility for the tasks required for that vehicle to arrive at its destination or otherwise operate the vehicle, and is not a steward. The vehicles may be bicycles , buses , cars , passenger trains , airliners , ships , ferryboats , personal watercrafts , all terrain vehicles , snowmobiles , and other methods of transportation. Crew members (if any), as well as

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540-440: Is one of the safest modes of transportation when measured by distance traveled . The Economist notes that air travel is safer by distance travelled, but trains are as safe as planes. It also notes that cars are four times more hazardous for deaths per time travelled, and cars and trains are respectively three times and six times safer than planes by number of journeys taken. Because the above figures are focused on providing

585-534: Is safer today than it has ever been. Modern commercial aviation boasts an accident rate of approximately 1 fatal accident per 16 million flights, far lower than historic numbers. On December 14, 1903, the Wright Brothers conducted a test flight of their powered airplane from slope of Big Kill Devil Hill in North Carolina. Upon takeoff, the airplane lifted about 15 feet off the ground, stalled, and crashed into

630-593: The Air Commerce Act of 1926 , which required pilots and aircraft to be examined and licensed, for accidents to be properly investigated, and for the establishment of safety rules and navigation aids; under the Aeronautics Branch of the United States Department of Commerce (US DoC). A network of aerial lighthouses was established in the United Kingdom and Europe during the 1920s and 1930s. Use of

675-662: The McDonnell Douglas DC-10 in 1979 after the crash of American Airlines Flight 191 due to engine loss, the Boeing 787 Dreamliner in 2013 after its battery problems , and the Boeing 737 MAX in 2019 after two crashes preliminarily tied to a flight control system. Parts manufactured without an aviation authority's approval are described as "unapproved". Unapproved parts include inferior counterfeits, those used beyond their time limits, those that were previously approved but not properly returned to service, those with fraudulent labels, production overruns that were not sold with

720-403: The non-directional beacon (NDB): the ground-based VOR stations were often co-located with DME transmitters and the pilots could establish their bearing and distance to the station. To highlight the jetliner evolution, Airbus split them in four generations: The fatal accident rate fell from 3.0 per million flights for the first generation to 0.9 for the next, 0.3 for the third and 0.1 for

765-705: The 1930s, like the Australian Aeradio stations guiding transport flights, with a light beacon and a modified Lorenz beam transmitter (the German blind-landing equipment preceding the modern instrument landing system - ILS). ILS was first used by a scheduled flight to make a landing in a snowstorm at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania , in 1938, and a form of ILS was adopted by the ICAO for international use in 1949. Hard runways were built worldwide for World War II to avoid waves and floating hazards plaguing seaplanes . Developed by

810-409: The 1950s. A number of ground-based weather radar systems can detect areas of severe turbulence. A modern Honeywell Intuvue weather system visualizes weather patterns up to 300 miles (480 km) away. Distance measuring equipment (DME) in 1948 and VHF omnidirectional range (VOR) stations became the main route navigation means during the 1960s, superseding the low frequency radio ranges and

855-575: The U.S. and introduced during World War II, LORAN replaced the sailors' less reliable compass and celestial navigation over water and survived until it was replaced by the Global Positioning System . Following the development of radar in World War II , it was deployed as a landing aid for civil aviation in the form of ground-controlled approach (GCA) systems then as the airport surveillance radar as an aid to air traffic control in

900-576: The United States between 2000 and 2010 was about 0.2 deaths per 10 billion passenger-miles. For driving, the rate was 150 per 10 billion vehicle-miles for 2000 : 750 times higher per mile than for flying in a commercial airplane. There were no fatalities on large scheduled commercial airlines in the United States for over nine years, between the Colgan Air Flight 3407 crash in February 2009, and

945-608: The United States, then 488 million in China . In 2016, there were 19 fatal accidents of civil airliners of more than 14 passengers, resulting in 325 fatalities, the second safest year ever after 2015 with 16 accidents and 2013 with 265 fatalities. For planes heavier than 5.7 t, there were 34.9 million departures and 75 accidents worldwide with 7 of these fatal for 182 fatalities, the lowest since 2013 : 5.21 fatalities per million departures. In 2017, there were 10 fatal airliner accidents, resulting in 44 occupant fatalities and 35 persons on

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990-421: The agency's permission, and those that are untraceable. Unapproved faulty parts have caused hundreds of incidents and crashes, some fatal, including about 24 crashes between 2010 and 2016. Foreign object debris (FOD) includes items left in the aircraft structure during manufacture/repairs, debris on the runway and solids encountered in flight (e.g. hail and dust). Such items can damage engines and other parts of

1035-502: The aircraft. In 2000, Air France Flight 4590 crashed after hitting a part that had fallen from a departing Continental Airlines DC-10. A pilot misinformed by a printed document (manual, map, etc.), reacting to a faulty instrument or indicator (in the cockpit or on the ground), or following inaccurate instructions or information from flight or ground control can lose situational awareness , or make errors, and accidents or near misses may result. The crash of Air New Zealand Flight 901

1080-408: The availability of an air option makes an otherwise inconvenient journey possible. Aviation industry insurers base their calculations on the deaths per journey statistic while the aviation industry itself generally uses the deaths per kilometre statistic in press releases. Since 1997, the number of fatal air accidents has been no more than 1 for every 2,000,000,000 person-miles flown, and thus

1125-460: The carrier act with a certain standard of care. The number of passengers that a vehicle or vessel may legally carry is defined as its seating capacity . A revenue passenger is someone who has paid a transport operator for her or his trip. That excludes non-paying passengers such as airline employees flying on free or nearly-free passes , babies and children who do not have a seat of their own, etc. However, passengers who paid for their trip with

1170-559: The crash of Pan Am Flight 214 in 1963. At that time, aircraft were not designed to withstand such strikes because their existence was unknown. The 1985 standard in force in the US at the time of the glider crash, Advisory Circular AC 20-53A, was replaced by Advisory Circular AC 20-53B in 2006. However, it is unclear whether adequate protection against positive lightning was incorporated. The effects of typical lightning on traditional metal-covered aircraft are well understood and serious damage from

1215-406: The driver or pilot of the vehicle, are usually not considered to be passengers. For example, a flight attendant on an airline would not be considered a passenger while on duty and the same with those working in the kitchen or restaurant on board a ship as well as cleaning staff, but an employee riding in a company car being driven by another person would be considered a passenger, even if the car

1260-482: The driver other than the benefit of his or her company or the mere sharing of expenses". In other situations, however, guest statutes may limit the ability of passengers to sue the driver of the vehicle over an accident. Many places require cars to be outfitted with measures specifically for the protection of passengers, such as passenger-side air bags . With respect to passengers on commercial vehicles or vessels, both national laws and international treaties require that

1305-419: The fatal accidents, Controlled flight into terrain 21%, runway excursions 17%, system or component failure : 6%, Touchdown off the runway : 5%, Abnormal Runway Contact : 4% and fire : 2%. Safety has improved from better aircraft design process , engineering and maintenance, the evolution of navigation aids, and safety protocols and procedures. There are three main ways in which the risk of fatality in

1350-497: The ground, causing 2001 to show a very high fatality rate. Even so, the rate that year including the attacks (estimated here to be about 4 deaths per billion person-miles), is safe compared to some other forms of transport when measured by distance traveled. The first aircraft electrical or electronic device avionics system was Lawrence Sperry 's autopilot , demonstrated in June 1914. The Transcontinental Airway System chain of beacons

1395-732: The ground. Even a small amount of icing or coarse frost can greatly impair the ability of a wing to develop adequate lift , which is why regulations prohibit ice, snow or even frost on the wings or tail, prior to takeoff. Air Florida Flight 90 crashed on takeoff in 1982, as a result of ice/snow on its wings. An accumulation of ice during flight can be catastrophic, as evidenced by the loss of control and subsequent crashes of American Eagle Flight 4184 in 1994, and Comair Flight 3272 in 1997. Both aircraft were turboprop airliners, with straight wings, which tend to be more susceptible to inflight ice accumulation, than are swept-wing jet airliners. Revenue passenger kilometre A passenger

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1440-463: The ground: the safest year ever for commercial aviation, both by the number of fatal accidents as well as in fatalities. By 2019, fatal accidents per million flights decreased 12 fold since 1970, from 6.35 to 0.51, and fatalities per trillion revenue passenger kilometre (RPK) decreased 81 fold from 3,218 to 40. Runway safety represents 36% of accidents, ground safety 18% and loss of control in-flight 16%. Loss of control inflight represents 35% of

1485-432: The journey would take a much longer time, the overall risk associated with making this journey by car would be higher than making the same journey by air, even if each individual hour of car travel is less risky than each hour of flight. For risks associated with long-range intercity travel, the most suitable statistic is the third one: deaths per billion kilometers. Still, this statistic can lose credence in situations where

1530-566: The last. With the arrival of Wide Area Augmentation System (WAAS), satellite navigation has become accurate enough for altitude as well as positioning use, and is being used increasingly for instrument approaches as well as en-route navigation. However, because the GPS constellation is a single point of failure , on-board Inertial Navigation System (INS) or ground-based navigation aids are still required for backup. In 2017, Rockwell Collins reported it had become more costly to certify than to develop

1575-655: The late 1920s was airfield lighting , to assist pilots in making landings in poor weather or after dark. The Precision Approach Path Indicator (PAPI) was developed from this in the 1930s, indicating to the pilot the angle of descent to the airfield. This later became adopted internationally through the standards of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO). Jimmy Doolittle developed instrument rating and made his first 'blind' flight in September 1929. The March 1931 wooden wing failure of

1620-465: The lighthouses has declined with the advent of radio navigation aids such as non-directional beacon (NDB), VHF omnidirectional range (VOR), and distance measuring equipment (DME). The last operational aerial lighthouse in the United Kingdom is on top of the cupola over the RAF College main hall at RAF Cranwell . One of the first aids for air navigation to be introduced in the United States in

1665-401: The overall passenger load factor . These measurements can further be used to measure unit revenues and unit costs. In transportation, a "no pax" trip is a trip without passengers. For example, no-pax flights are Air cargo , ferry and positioning flights. Similarly, with a public transit bus it can be used at the beginning and end of a driver’s work shift to/from the bus terminal, or in

1710-442: The sand. Only three days later, on December 17, 1903, Wilbur's brother, Orville Wright , would fly the airplane for the world's first powered, sustained, and controlled heavier-than-air flight in history. Although the failed test flight on December 14 would be mostly forgotten in aviation, it remains to this day one of the first aviation accidents in history. In the early years of air travel, accidents were exceedingly common. 1929

1755-458: The vehicle by the distance traveled . On long-distance buses and trains (and some planes), passengers may board and disembark at intermediate stops, in which case RPMs/RPKs have to be calculated for each segment if a careful total is needed. Revenue passenger miles can be considered the basic amount of "production" that an airline creates. The revenue passenger miles can be compared to the available seat miles over an airline's system to determine

1800-569: The year. The foundation gives out annual awards to recognize individual achievements and group achievements in aviation safety. The FSF manages the Aviation Safety Network (ASN), a website that keeps track of aviation accidents, incidents , and hijackings . Its main database contains details of over 23,000 reports (2022) and investigations, news, photos, and statistics. The website has 9900 subscribers and receives about 50,000 visitors per week. ASN maintains three distinct databases: ASN

1845-468: Was a result of receiving and interpreting incorrect coordinates, which caused the pilots to inadvertently fly into a mountain. Boeing studies showed that airliners are struck by lightning twice per year on average; aircraft withstand typical lightning strikes without damage. The dangers of more powerful positive lightning were not understood until the destruction of a glider in 1999. It has since been suggested that positive lightning might have caused

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1890-425: Was being driven on company business. In most jurisdictions, laws have been enacted that dictate the legal obligations of the owner of a vehicle or vessel, or of the driver or pilot of the same, towards the passengers. With respect to passengers riding in cars and vans, the driver may owe a duty of care to passengers, particularly where the passenger's presence in the vehicle can be seen to "confer some benefit on

1935-483: Was built by the Commerce Department in 1923 to guide airmail flights. Gyrocopters were developed by Juan de la Cierva to avoid stall and spin accidents, and for that invented cyclic and collective controls used by helicopters . The first flight of a gyrocopter was on 17 January 1923. During the 1920s, the first laws were passed in the United States of America to regulate civil aviation , notably

1980-702: Was founded in January 1996 by Harro Ranter, who currently serves as director and Fabian I. Lujan who manages the website's operations. Harro started gathering information about aircraft accidents since 1983 and wrote a book covering over 1000 accidents in the summer of 1985. Lujan joined the Aviation Safety Web Pages in August 1998. Aviation safety Aviation security is focused on protecting air travelers, aircraft and infrastructure from intentional harm or disruption, rather than unintentional mishaps. Aviation

2025-675: Was named the year of "The Great Crash" due to the frequency of aircraft accidents that occurred during the year, with 24 fatal accidents reported. In 1928 and 1929, the overall accident rate was about 1 in every million miles (1.6 million kilometers) flown. In today's industry, that accident rate would translate to about 7,000 fatal accidents each year. For the ten-year period 2002 to 2011, 0.6 fatal accidents happened per one million flights globally, 0.4 per million hours flown, 22.0 fatalities per one million flights or 12.7 per million hours flown. From 310 million passengers in 1970, air transport had grown to 3,696 million in 2016, led by 823 million in

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