Air travel fatalities at all-time low
January 3, 2012, 05:37 pm
A recent study form Ascend aviation consulting company found the air travel fatality rate is at an all-time low, making 2011 the best year ever for flying safety.
Worldwide, there were 401 reported fatalities on commercial and charter planes in 2011, down from 726 in 2010. With 2.9 billion passengers using air travel across the globe in 2011, the fatality rate was one in every 7.1 million people aboard a plane. This is the lowest fatality rate since the company started tracking flying safety in 1990, MSNBC reported.
The increase in safety can be attributed to a number of things, Peter Goeltz, senior vice president with O'Neil and Associates, told the source.
"Aircraft and avionics are better than ever, training is better and we're getting more information on potential danger points because pilots can report mistakes without being punished," Goeltz told the source.
In an interview with USA Today, Arnold Barnett, a statistics professor at MIT, said the safety record for the aviation industry for the past five years has progressively improved.
"Even if you took frequent flights (in the United States), as business travelers do, the chance that sooner or later you'll encounter a crash is extremely low," Barnett told the source.
However, it remains important for pilots to invest in pilot insurance to safeguard against any unexpected circumstances.
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