There is a sharp increase in casualties in air accidents in 2018 compared to the previous year. However, 2018 is the ninth safest year for commercial aviation.
In 2018, 556 people died in aviation accidents, compared with 44 in 2017, according to the Dutch-based Aviation Safety Network. Total fatal airplane incidents in the past 365 days were 15.
The deadliest of them occurred in October when a passenger airplane of Boeing 737 Mach of airline Lion Air crashed into the sea off Indonesia shortly after taking off from Jakarta. The aircraft was carrying 189 people on board, all of them reported dead.
Human error caused the crash of Boeing 737-201 near Havana, Cuba in July, when 112 people lost their lives.
In February, 66 people died as a passenger plane crashed into a mountain in Iran. the same month, aircraft An-148 of Saratov Airlines crashed in Russia after taking off from Moscow’s Domodedovo Airport with 71 people aboard.
Aircraft crash during landing at Kathmandu Airport in Nepal caused the eath of 51 people.
Despite this grim statistics, the situation has improved drastically over the last 20 years.
“If the accident rate had remained the same as 10 years ago, today we would have to witness at least 39 heavy aircraft accidents”, said the director of Aviation Safety Network. “And if the percentage is the same as in 2000, then fatal incidents would have been 64. This shows the tremendous progress made in aviation safety over the last two decades”, explained he.
