2017 IATA Safety Report has been released as usual during the month of April and it’s one of the most comprehensive report about worldwide aviation safety : it’s worth to mention also the ICAO one and the one issued by the two major airplane manufacturers , Airbus and Boeing.

“While it is easy to be seduced by what has been called the safest year on record, the data in this report indicates that there is room for significant improvement in worldwide industry safety. Areas for improvement include regions with accident rates above the global average, types of operation (such as cargo), older generation turboprops, and notably, operations that do not adhere to the standards of the IATA Operational Safety Audits (IOSA).”

A very interesting fact from 2017 IATA Safety Report is the following :

“Turboprop operations accounted for 20% of all sectors flown last year, yet represented 44% of all accidents and 83% of all fatal accidents.”

“The industry continued the 10-year trend of a declining accident rate and reducing fatality risk. All indicators show a downward trend over the past 10 years. IATA and the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) are focused on continuously reducing fatality risks in the industry.”

2017 IATA safety report

Another safety issue that persists is about “accidents in the runway […] : there were 17 Runway Excursions, albeit with zero fatalities, indicating an area where further improvements can be made.”

In 2017 IATA safety report are carefully reviewed the categories with fatalities :

• Controlled Flight into Terrain (1), with four crew fatalities and 35 on-ground fatalities
• Loss of Control – In-flight (4), with 11 fatalities
• Undershoot (1), with four fatalities

The accident categories with no fatalities in 2017 were:

• Runway Excursion (17)
• In-flight Damage (4)
• Ground Damage (2)
• Hard Landing (2)
• Gear Up Landing/Gear Collapse (5)
• Tail Strike (4)
• Off-Airport Landing/Ditching (1)
• Undershoot (2)
• Runway Collision (2)

“In 2017 the global accident rate was 1.08 per million sectors : 48.8% of the world’s accidents in 2017 occurred in the Africa (AFI) and Asia-Pacific (ASPAC) regions.”

The ASPAC region and ASPAC-based operators had the highest total number of accidents, 82 and 81 respectively. This represents 24% of the total accidents worldwide in the last five years. Indonesian operators had 23 accidents in the period

2017 IATA safety report

Some other interesting numbers from 2017 IATA safety report :

“The largest number of accidents occurred in Generation 2 turboprops and Generation 3 jets, there were no fatal accidents in Generation 4 jets or Generation 3 turboprops.

• 44% of the world’s accidents involved turboprops, while the global turboprop fleet is one fifth the size of the jet fleet.
• Four of the six fatal accidents in 2017 were in cargo operations