From your friends at ATCMonitor.com.  © 2006 - Reproduction without permission is prohibited.

Editor note:  As this article is being released, the December 2005 Midway accident occurred claiming one life, the first fatality in a commercial airline accident within the US in the past 3 years.  

How many times have you wondered which airline is the safest to fly?  There are some airlines that haven’t had any fatal accidents, and then there are airlines that have had several fatalities.  However, this one factor doesn’t make one airline automatically safer than another but it does affect the general public’s perception of safety.  Generally the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) looks at an airline as a whole, to see how the many elements from its operations system show trends or patterns that need improved safety measures; such as its aircraft, pilots and maintenance facilities.  In fact, the FAA measures the amount that airlines interact to meet their federal standards.  The FAA suggests that by analyzing this type of data they can better target areas for improvement.  Safety is not only a top public interest priority; it is also an economic necessity.  People will only fly if they feel safe and will return to the skies only if they trust the system.

Since 1914, which was the dawn of the airline industry, there have been nearly 13,000 fatalities that were related to airline accidents.  In the last 30 years, the worst year on record for aviation accident related fatalities was 1996, which accounted for 1,840 deaths.  The previous highest figure is from 1985, which accounted for 1,801 deaths.  But even with these numbers, aviation is still one of the safest modes of transportation as compared to other types.  In fact, just in 2003, highway accidents took over 42,000 lives, while railway and boating accidents were even still higher than aviation accidents according to the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB).  If that many accidents were occurring in one year of airline travel the whole airline industry would come to a screeching halt.  But nevertheless, there are fatal accidents in airline travel.  So why should we give the FAA a break?  Well, for starters the last three year period has been the safest three years in commercial aviation history and 2004 was considered the safest year ever for airline travel.  Moreover, the FAA is still seeking new enhancements to their already improved safety record.

One of the main goals of the FAA is to set the standard for safety, not only in the United States, but globally as well.  Currently 130 domestic and 118 scheduled international air carriers serve the United States.  Even though the FAA does not claim jurisdiction worldwide, their efforts help to set the pace for other countries as well.  The FAA continues to develop new technologies for lowering the number of yearly accidents while at the same time improving their safety record.  This type of scenario requires that the FAA look at the trends and patterns of past accidents and then engage in a systematic approach to learning from those past events.  One of the ways that the FAA is approaching the problem of safety is with a plan of action called "Flight Plan".  The layout of the Flight Plan is to provide the FAA with a strategy and set of objectives to accomplish for a rolling three year average.  As expected, one of the main objectives for the airline industry is to reduce the commercial airline fatal accident rate.  The current strategy for accomplishing this feat is to address safety concerns and issues, expand cost-effective safety oversight and surveillance, and continue research into the causal factors of accidents.  To do this, the FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) are working closely together in order to determine performance targets and areas of concern that formulate a set of measurements for solving these safety concerns.  For example, last year the NTSB presented the FAA with 27 air safety recommendations for improvement and while 80 percent resolution was their target they closed nearly 93 percent of those issues, exceeding their projected goal.  This example already shows the commitment of the FAA and other agencies to improve safety and reduce airline accidents.  In terms of the airline fatal accident rate, the 2004 goal was a rate not to exceed one accident for every 3.5 million departures, which worked out to about 3 accidents for the total amount of departures recorded for 2004, however since only 2 accidents occurred for this rate, 2004 was hailed the safest year yet. 

The FAA's plan between now and 2010 is to achieve the lowest possible accident rate.  In order to accomplish these goals, the FAA is taking an average from safety improvements and accidents that took place in 1994-1996 and using it as a baseline for future improvements.  The first objective the FAA has is to reduce the airline fatal accident rate by 80% from the 1994-1996 baseline to a three year rolling average rate of .010 fatalities per 100,000 departures by the year 2007, and even further to reduce the rate below .010 per 100,000 departures by 2009.  The FAA says that their mission is to provide the safest, most efficient aerospace system in the world.  While the past three years have been the safest in U.S. airline history, the Federal Aviation Administration is extending their efforts to wherever planes fly.  The ultimate objective is to ensure safe air travel abroad as well as in the United States.  In order to make progress in with these goals, the FAA will increase aviation safety and technology activities in China, India and Brazil and they also plan to open new international offices in India, South America and the Middle East by 2006. 

Although airline accidents are rare, they do happen and for those involved, the results are generally catastrophic.  The attempts by the FAA to reassure the general public of its safety record and intentions often sound like a defense case following a major accident.  Therefore, the FAA and NTSB work closely together during the investigation of accidents in order to provide the public with information as to the cause of the accident and to reassure them that future accident's will be less likely to occur as a result of their newly gained knowledge.  However, since there isn't a major difference between air carriers in terms of accident rates, the greatest effect that the FAA could have on the general public is to educate them.  The FAA and other agencies, including the NTSB are moving towards better safety policies that will prevent future accidents.  If information about how the system works is made readily available to the general public on a routine basis, then it may help to educate the public that aviation accidents are not only less likely to occur, but why they are less likely to occur.