ANALYSIS
flightglobal.com 13-19 January 2015 | Flight International | 23
2011 and one per 1.26 million in 2010. The av-
erage for the last five years is now about one
fatal accident per 1.75 million flights.
The 2014 Malaysian disasters, however,
have twisted perceptions of airline safety, de-
spite 2014 being such a safe year. Ascend’s
2014 Safety Perception Survey starts by quot-
ing an actual newspaper headline fairly repre-
sentative of media reaction: “As another jet
crashes... is it safe to fly?” The study later sums
up why this appears to be the perception: “The
year 2014 will be remembered for the loss of
the two Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777s, result-
ing in 510 passenger and 27 crew deaths.
“Given the strange circumstances sur-
rounding the disappearance of the first 777,
which is considered likely due to some form
of unlawful interference, and the shooting
down of the second, these losses would seem
to be more to do with security than safety.
Nevertheless, they still would have had a sig-
nificant impact on the public perception of
airline safety.”
The fact is that passengers died in aircraft.
Nervous travellers do not distinguish between
the causes of death.
Ascend’s fatal accident rate statistics in-
clude all commercial airline flights by jets and
turboprops with a seat capacity of 14 and
above. Each year Flight International
SEVERAL STUDIES or projects
aimed at reducing threats to
airline safety are likely to
come to fruition in 2015.
In one of these, reacting to
the French investigator’s rec-
ommendations in the report
on the loss of Air France flight
447 over the South Atlantic in
2009, Airbus says it is prepar-
ing to fit deployable flight data
recorders with embedded
emergency locator transmit-
ters in A350s and A380s.
The European airframer
says there is more work to do
yet, and at the same time
there is debate in the industry
about how practical this is. No
aviation authorities – at pre-
sent – are planning to man-
date deployable FDRs (see
Feature P32).
ICAO’s task force on risks to
civil aircraft from conflict
zones, set up after the shoot-
ing down of Malaysia Airlines
flight MH17, will almost cer-
tainly produce its conclusions
this year – perhaps as early as
February, at the organisation’s
High Level Safety Conference.
So far the task force has been
exploring how the existingNotice to Airmen (NOTAM) sys-
tem could be better used to
share urgent and critical con-
flict zone risk information.
Meanwhile, “key ICAO part-
ners” are working on setting
up a new centralised systemfor “the prompt sharing of con-
flict zone risk information”.
However, says ICAO, it will re-
main the responsibility of air-
lines to decide where they fly.
In 2014, ICAO, with the full
backing of IATA and following
the loss of Malaysia Airlines
flight MH370, also set up a
task force on flight tracking
which should report this year.
The organisation wants to de-
velop a flight tracking “concept
of operations” covering how
the new tracking data getsshared, with whom, and under
what circumstances. It is also
investigating setting up perfor-
mance-based international
standards to ensure “the
broader adoption of airline
flight tracking throughout the
aviation system”.
Analysts at Ascend, a
Flightglobal advisory service,
note that the aviation insur-
ance war-risk market has hard-
ened slightly because of the
MH17 shoot-down loss and
fighting in Libya – but not as
much as the providers had
hoped.
Ascend predicts that unless
there are more war losses next
year, rates will soften again.
Meanwhile, remarks the con-
sultancy: “The ‘all-risk’ market
has hardened a little in that
they are not giving so many
reductions, and they are either
holding the line or getting
small increases, but nothing to
write home about.
“If nothing much happens,
next year the market will sof-
ten again,” it adds. “The prob-
lem for the risk-takers in both
the war and all-risk markets is
huge overcapacity. ■OUTLOOK
CONTINUING THE DRIVE FOR IMPROVEMENT❯❯“The problem for
the risk-takers in
both the war and
all-risk markets is
huge overcapacity”
ASCEND
Flightglobal advisory serviceA TransAsia Airways ATR 72-500 crashed as it tried to land in Magong, Taiwan, in JulyRex FeaturesPA