Air travel, renowned for its safety, has encountered approximately 75 per cent of global civil and military aviation accidents attributed to human errors across various stages, including design, manufacturing, assembly, maintenance, and flight operations.
The application of the Human Factors Analysis and Classification System (HFACS) framework is exemplified, emphasising its role in understanding and preventing accidents. Notably, a significant number of recent civil aviation accidents have been observed during the landing and approach phases. These statistics underscore the potential to minimise accidents by enhancing situational awareness, particularly crucial as air traffic is projected to double in the next 10–15 years.
Considering this growth, the role of human factors in accident prevention has become increasingly significant. The statistics propose a new model for human factors and outline a path towards ensuring even safer skies in the future.
The number of fatal civil airliner accidents from 1945 through February 2022. At 864, the United States is the country with the highest number of fatal civil airliner accidents, followed by Russia, Canada, Brazil, and Colombia. At 43, Argentina has the least fatalities.
A total of 28,442 aircraft accidents have resulted in 1,58,798 fatalities. Maximum peak is observed during the 1940s, and there is a gradual decrease in the number of accidents from the year 1978. Considering the period between 2001 and 2022, a total of 3769 aircraft accidents have resulted in 20,172 fatalities. Fitting a linear trend line for the data between 2001 and 2022 would indicate a theoretical possibility of aircraft accidents tending to near zero by the mid-2040s.
The majority of these accidents were caused by a runway excursion, whereby the plane veers off or overruns the runway surface during takeoff or landing. Issues with landing gears and ground damage, where airline personnel cause damage to an aircraft on the ground, were also common causes. Of the fatal accidents in 2020, the majority of fatalities were due to a loss of control of the aircraft in-flight, followed by runway excursion.
Air transportation safety is a broader issue than the risk of aircraft accidents though. Another key safety issue is the need for airports to screen passengers and baggage prior to boarding, reducing the risk of dangerous goods or passengers endangering other passengers or the crew during the flight.
Airport security procedures create waiting times though, creating the need to balance efficiency with safety – especially seeing as most passengers believe a wait time of more than five minutes is unacceptable. Accordingly, hundreds of millions of dollars are invested globally every year in improving airport security while speeding up processes, for example through implementing automated biometric identification systems.
The continuous annual growth in global air traffic passenger demand has led to an increase in the number of aeroplanes involved in accidents. Despite being among the top 20 countries with the highest quality of air infrastructure, the United States reports the highest number of civil airliner accidents globally.
In 2020, which saw a 57 per cent drop in the number of commercial flights to 16.4 million, there was a rise in the number of people killed in accidents involving large commercial aircraft. The majority of these deaths occurred in January 2020, following the tragic downing of a Ukrainian plane in Iranian airspace, resulting in 176 fatalities. Another fatal incident occurred in May, with a Pakistani airliner crash claiming 97 lives.
On January 15, 2023, a Yeti Airlines-operated ATR-72 aircraft crashed while landing at the Pokhara International Airport. The Kathmandu-Pokhara flight was carrying 172 people onboard, of these, 168 bodies were recovered, and authorities confirmed there were no survivors.
This is the first major aviation disaster in 2023, and hopefully the last.
Examining aviation safety parameters, there appears to be a decline in certain aspects. For instance, there were 0.37 jet hull losses per one million flights in 2016, improving to a record-low of 0.11 jet hull losses per one million flights in 2017. However, in 2020, the region with the highest hull loss rate was the Commonwealth of Independent States. It’s important to note that these figures exclude accidents involving military, training, private, cargo, and helicopter flights.
CIVIL AVIATION ACCIDENTS IN INDIA
In India, despite a relatively low number of reported flight accidents, recent data from the Ministry of Civil Aviation reveals 192 airline safety issues over the last decade. The majority of these events occurred on flights operated by IndiGo and Air India. Between 2013 and July 25, 2022, Indian airlines reported 19 accidents, 99 serious incidents, and 74 incidents. An airline accident is defined as an occurrence where a person is fatally or seriously injured, the aircraft sustains damage experiences structural failure, or it goes missing or becomes inaccessible. A serious incident is an event that could have led to an accident, while an incident is a situation affecting the flight’s safety.
During the past decade, six Air India aircraft were involved in accidents, followed by five SpiceJet and four Jet Airways flights. Notably, 2022 witnessed one accident involving a SpiceJet flight on May 1.
In terms of serious incidents, IndiGo leads the list with 35 reported incidents since 2013, while Air India follows closely with 49 incidents. The data also reveals that in the last year (July 1, 2021, to June 30, 2022), a total of 478 technical snags were reported.
A detailed analysis of the data indicates that safety issues peaked in 2019 with 35 reported incidents across airlines. The numbers decreased by almost half in 2020 and 2021 (17 each), likely influenced by lockdowns and reduced air travel frequency. However, four airline accidents occurred in 2021. As of July 25, 2022, ten incidents have been reported, including one accident. In conclusion, the analysis of civil aviation accidents spanning several decades highlights the critical role of human factors in air travel safety. Despite the overall safety record of air travel, human errors at various stages remain a significant contributor to accidents globally. The Human Factors Analysis and Classification System (HFACS) framework has proven valuable in understanding and preventing accidents, emphasising the importance of situational awareness, particularly during landing and approach phases. The data presented illustrates the historical trends in aviation accidents, with the United States leading in the number of fatal civil airliner accidents. The year 2020, marked by a significant reduction in commercial flights, saw an increase in fatalities per accident, emphasizing the need for ongoing safety measures.