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Aviation History
1974
1974 - 0088.PDF
/\IK SAFETY •^WmsKiJ mmam _ ~-r -. • • • . ,1- !tll 3. . Safety record improves FIRST ANALYSIS OF THE 1973 PUBLIC TRANSPORT ACCIDENT FIGURES IN A YEAR WHEN scheduled public transport flying showed a growth of eleven per cent, fatalities to passengers dropped by eight per cent; the accident figures for 1973, if taken in isolation, give cause for considerable hope, for there was a marked reduction in the number of accidents to aircraft engaged on scheduled flights. Our records show that 1,042 passengers were killed on scheduled flights by Icao-contracting states during the year but this figure must be viewed with caution because of the paucity of information which is made available by the USSR. If we exclude the USSR, in order to be able to make an accurate comparison, we find that there were 24 acci dents involving the loss of 939 passenger lives in 1973; in 1972 we recorded 39 accidents and 1,089 passenger fatalities on the same basis. The total number of fatal accidents during 1973 is the lowest since 1965 but, as has been feared, the increased passenger loads which are typical of the present generation of jet transports have resulted in no comparable decrease in the number of fatalities. Although no wide-body transports became total losses as a result of a flying accident during 1973, there were, nevertheless, some high death rolls. 170 passengers were killed when a Royal Jordanian Airlines Boeing 707 crashed at Kano on January 22 and 116 passengers died in the Varig Boeing 707 which crashed near Orly on July 11. The highest known death roll during the year in an Aero- flot accident is that for a Tu-154 at Prague on February 19 when 62 passengers were killed. There is, however, thought to have been a significant number of fatalities when a Tu-124 crashed on a scheduled domestic flight on December 16. The 1973 statistics show some differences in emphasis when compared with those for previous years. There has been a sharp rise in the proportion of passenger fatalities which have occurred in jet aircraft crashes. In 1972 these accounted for almost exactly half of the total but in 1973 the proportion has risen to 77 per cent. Fatalities arising in turbo-prop aircraft accounted for 40 per cent of the 1972 total, a figure which has dropped to 13-6 per cent in 1973. Fatalities arising in crashes of piston-engined aircraft have stayed at substantially the same proportion— roughly nine per cent of the total. The inference to be drawn from these proportions is that jet aircraft are penetrating still further among second-level operators Number of fatal accidents and passenger fatalities Turbo-jet, turbo-prop and piston-engine aircraft, scheduled air services, 1964-73 (Total, International and Domestic) Classification Fatal passenger accidents Turbo-jet Turbo-propeller Piston-engined Total Passengers killed Turbo-jet Turbo-propeller Piston-engined Total 1964 3 12 10 25 136 274 206 616 1965 5 2 18 25 249 35 400 684 1966 7 62 18J. * 31 451 217 333 1001 1967 13 7 10 30 379 132 167 678 1968 9 155 11 35 328 436 148 912 1969 10 11 11 32 490 120 336 946 19701 8 15 6 29 333 399 47 779 19711 7 12 14 33 460 394 113 967 1972« 11 19 11 41 651 521 113 1285 19737 17 7 4 28 800 142 100 1042 Total for 10 years 90 106 113 309 4277 2670 1963 8910 1. Data for 1970, 1971. 1972 and 1973 include the USSR. Data for earlier years do not. 2. Includes 1 helicopter accident with 20 passenger fatalities. 3. Includes one mid-air collision between two piston-engined aircraft (counted as one accident in the total). 4. includes 1 helicopter accident with 2 passenger fatalities. 5. Includes 2 helicopter accidents with 38 passenger fatalities. 6. Includes 1 jet/jet collision, 1 turboprop/turboprop collision and 1 piston/piston collision (each counted as one accident in the total). 7. Excludes fatalities in one Aeroflot accident. Data not available.
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