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Aviation History
1959
1959 - 0046.PDF
10 FLIGHT AIR COMMERCE 1958 SAFETY RECORD ~K/tORE people were killed last year in airline accidents in the1VX f ree WOrld than in any previous twelvemonth: in some 50separate tragedies over 800 h'ves of passengers and crew were lost. Yet the growth of air transport is such that last year's fatality rateswere possibily the least alarming in the history of the industry. Excluding accidents on non-scheduled flights, the estimatednumber of passenger fatalities in 1958 stands at about 500— precise figures will not be available until official I.C.A.O. statisticsare published next summer. Related to last year's traffic, this implies a global fatality rate of 0.9 per 100 million passenger-miles.Compared with 1957, the rate for the world's airlines thus remains substantially unchanged (only in the last two years has this fatalityrate been less than unity). Regional rates differ sharply from these global averages. NorthAmerica and Australasia continued to experience the best safety 1947 48 5O 51 52 S3 54 55 56 57 58 records, their rates continuing to be less than half the overallfigure. Airlines in Latin America, Asia, Africa and the Middle East—which have in past years shown collectively the worstresults—improved their performance and experienced an average rate of about two fatalities per 100 million passenger-miles. Theblack spot for the year must be recorded against the European carriers. In terms of statistics the airlines of Europe were moredangerous than those of any other region. To put their record into perspective, they accounted together for less an one-fifth of globalair traffic but over one-half of global fatalities. It is difficult to establish precise reasons why such wide regionaldifferences should exist. But it cannot be coincidence that the "safe" regions are those which are climatically and economicallymost favoured. The "dangerous" regions tend to be those which are affected by difficult weather conditions—bad visibility, highhumidity and severe turbulence—or where the volume of traffic is insufficient to allow the use of the most modern equipment andtechniques. Contrary to widely held belief, the carriers with encouragingrecords are those whose operations tend to be small in scale or short-haul in character. As in previous years, a remarkable numberof last year's accidents took place on routes which were relatively infrequently flown by the operator concerned. An alarming feature of the safety record for 1958 was the num-ber of collisions and near misses. The two most tragic incidents each involved military aircraft: A United DC-7 was struck by aU.S.A.F. F-100 over Nevada in April; and a B.E.A. Viscount collided with an Italian F-86 near Naples in October. Footnote: There were three accidents, not included in the aboveanalysis, over the Christmas period. Two were on French scheduled services. A U.A.T. DC-6B crashed on take-off atSalisbury, S. Rhodesia, on Boxing Day causing the loss of three lives among the 63 passengers and crew of seven on board. AtVienna on Christmas Day, Air France Super Constellation F-BAZX crashed and burnt out near Schwechat Airport, for-tunately without loss of life. On Christmas Eve, B.O.A.C. Britannia 312 G-AOVD, on a local flight from London Airport, crashednear Christchurch, Hants. There were 12 B.O.A.C. employees, five of them crew, on board, and nine lost their lives. The threeinjured survivors include the first officer. The commander, who had not reported any trouble, was Capt. J. E. Jackson. BREVITIES B.O.A.C. Comet 4 G-APDC inaugurated the first U.K.-Canada jet service when it arrived in Montreal on December 20. Opera- tions will be at a weekly frequency initially. * * * A Caravelle flight simulator has been ordered by S.A.S. fromRedifon. It will be installed at the airline's Stockholm base. * * * The I.A.T.A. traffic conference on jet fares, abandoned at Cannes in October, will be resumed in Paris on January 20. X * * Canadian Marconi are now delivering Doppler to PanAm forinstallation in Boeing 707-120s. * * * Eagle announce an addition to their proposed low-fare colonial services—from London to Hong Kong via Aden. Proposed fares will be £136 13s single to Hong Kong, compared with £224 normal tourist rate. * * * B.K.S. have arranged a series of daily charter flights betweenLuton and Belfast with Vauxhall Motors. Their Bristol 170 will carry new cars and spares on the outward journey and contractcargo on the return. * * * - - " "; • Scheduled traffic carried by all U.K. airlines in October was4 per cent less than in October 1957. This fall is wholly due to the B.O.A.C. strike, traffic for B.E.A. and the independents havingincreased by about 13 per cent. * * * Aviation Week reports that Pan American have experienced their first premature jet engine removal from a 707 resulting from damage caused by debris-ingestion. The damage was discovered at Paris last month; a spare engine was flown from London. . * * * The C.A.B. is investigating National's practice of chargingfirst-class fares for economy-class seats on 707 services between New York and Miami. The Board (which has approved a $10de luxe surcharge) says that the practice may be "unlawful." Hunting-Clan substituted DC-6As for Yorks on their Africargo service on December 14. * * * All B.E.A. and Swissair services between U.K. and Switzerland will be operated in pool from April 1. * * * The United Kingdom and Spain have been re-negotiating their 1950 Air Agreement. No details of the discussions have been made available. * * * Flight regrets to record that Capt. D. F. MacMaster, assistantoperations manager of Qantas, died suddenly while on holiday with his family in Australia on December 27. He was 46. * * * It is reported from Buenos Aires that Aerolineas Argentinas have decided to purchase a fleet of Friendships, from 10 to 20 in number, to replace DC-3s and DC-4s. * * * Air France will put Caravelles on to the Paris - Rome - Athens -Istanbul route in May; on to Paris - Warsaw - Moscow in July; on to Paris - Rome - Tel Aviv in September; and on Paris - Algiers inOctober. Services to Stockholm and later between Nice and London will begin at the end of the year. * * * Skyways announce the formation of a subsidiary to deal withtheir expanding Coach Air services between the U.K. and the Continent. Known as Skyways Coach Air Ltd., it will be respon-sible for all Coach Air services with the exception of that to Vichy and MontpelUer, which will remain the concern of the parent company. • * * * I.C.A.O. estimates for 1958 show that global passenger trafficincreased by 5 per cent while the volume of freight and mail rose by 1 and 7 per cent. Long-haul traffic continued to grow rapidly(largely as a result of the economy-class surge across the North Atlantic) and average passenger-haul reached the record distanceof 600 miles.
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