FlightGlobal.com
Home
Premium
Archive
Video
Images
Forum
Blogs
Jobs
Shop
RSS
Email Newsletters
You are in:
Home
Aviation History
2000
2000 - 0390.PDF
ASIAN .>* AEROSPACE 2000 Aviation Organisation (ICAO), however, the maximum number of Merpati flights in the decade is a of about 1 million. That gives an acci dent rate of 10 fatal accidents per million flights. The ICAO world average annual fatal acci dent rate for scheduled international passenger airlines in the 1990s was 1.5 per million flights. Garuda, more fairly compared widi the ICAO figure than xMerpati because it is a scheduled international carrier, had a rate of about 3.3 fatal accidents per million flights. A comparison with a major US carrier which has not been free of fatal accidents puts things into perspective. American Airlines had two fatal accidents in die 1990s, but having operated about 7 million flights during the period, its fatal accident rate is fewer than 0.3 per million flights. Garuda's fatal acci dent rate is more than 10 times that. Some Asia-Pacific carriers, such as Singapore Airlines (SIA), had no fatal acci dents in the 1990s. SIA's subsidiary, Silk Air, however, suffered a controversial fatal crash of a Boeing 737 over Indonesia in 1997. The strong industry belief that die cause of die Silk Air crash was a disaffected captain's suicide will remain in currency unless the official accident report - still awaited after more than two years - can present evidence to dispel it. CHINA'S RECORD China makes a poor showing, with 17 acci dents, six of them fatal. Industry growth went into overdrive early in the decade, and this was accepted as the cause of the nightmare year suffered by the country's trunk carriers in 1993, with four major fatal accidents. After that, the government reined expansion back, and safety improved. The most recent fatal accidents were to China Southern in 1997 and China Soudiwest lastyear, so China's woes are not over yet (Airline accident survey for 1999, Flight International, 25-31 January, P46-55). Taiwan's China Airlines (CAL) has the worst record among the major Asia- Pacific carriers, with 11 accidents, four of them fatal. Korean Air (KAL) is arguably on a par, having suffered 14 accidents-but only diree fatal crashes-all since 1997. But the malaise which affected CAL showed up in the performance of Taiwan's regional car riers, too. They suffered six fatal accidents in the 1990s. CAL suffered three fatal accidents to sched uled passenger flights during the past 10 years, and one to a Boeing 747 freighter. Since it oper ated 443,900 flights in the period, its accident rate is nine fatal accidents per million flights. For passenger operations it is nearly seven per million flights, almost five times worse than average. For nervous passengers, Korean Air has clearly not been the airline of choice. But its statistics for the past 10 years reveal a more com plex picture than a first glance indicates. Two of its three fatal accidents in the period involved freighters. So, being a large airline which has had only one fatal passenger aircraft accident (747-300 at Guam in 1997) among the nearly 1.3 million flights it has operated in the 1990s, its fatal accident rate, at 0.85 per million flights, is better than the world average. Its all-opera tions (including cargo flights) rate is poor at 3.9 fatal accidents per million flights. Meanwhile, KAL had a rate of nearly 11 accidents per mil lion flights in the 1990s (fatal, plus non-fatal). "The Asia-Pacific airlines suffer jointly from the consequences of public perceptions about air travel their region." KAL's cargo-flight accident rate, however, is about 10 fatal accidents per million departures for the decade and was 100 fatal accidents per million, calculated on an annual basis for 1999, die year of botJi the freighter accidents. Other carriers, like Thai Airways Inter national, may have had only two major fatal accidents in the same period, but for a medium- sized fleet, this makes for a high accident rate. The airline operated 800,000 flights in the 1990s, so its fatal accident rate is 2.5 per million flights, which is unsettling for an airline with a good reputation for high-quality service. Given that the Asia-Pacific airlines operate modern fleets and have an operational infra structure better than is available in many other parts of the world, no reason is readily apparent as to why some of its airlines have such a poor safety record and odiers - such as the Japanese carriers, Cadiay Pacific and SIA, for example - such high standards. JAPANESE SOLUTIONS Japan Airlines suffered two disastrous crashes in the 1980s and did much corporate soul-search ing, which has produced the desired result. Now Taiwan has decided diat the key is to improve accident investigation and safety oversight and it has restructured the way it does both. The fruits have yet to show. ICAO and the Flight Safety Foundation have encouraged the area to set up a region al safety forum, like Latin America's Pan American Aviation Safety Team, but this has been resisted. North America and Europe have similar forums to share safety information, to identify problems specific to the region and to develop policy. Making decisions in isolation, however, is not a luxury granted to South Korea. US major Delta Air Lines, which used to code- share with Korean, cancelled the arrange ment last year and although Delta has announced in the past fortnight that it is to form an alliance with Korean - likely to be the Asia-Pacific partner in a Delta/Air France-led alliance - it is holding back from codesharing. Meanwhile, the US Federal Aviation Administration, spurred by KAL's recent accident record and its close relation ship with Delta, has launched a policy of vet ting safety standards of all foreign airlines that want to codeshare with US carriers. President Kim Dae-jung has referred publicly to KAL as a "national disgrace" and the government has confiscated many of its routes. Top management has been replaced with a new team headed, since last April, by president and chief executive Shim Yi-taek, and the massive training organisation, FlightSafety Boeing, has been contracted to upgrade crews' skills. Whatever needs doing is not a quick fix, however, as evi denced by the fatal 747-2 OOF crash at London Stansted, UK, in December. Shim says that his management style is soft er - listening to people and letting managers manage - than that of his forebears. KAL and CAL are under pressure to improve and are acting out national policies to do so, but pressure from outside the region is greater than from within. Garuda and the Indonesian avia tion authorities, in their strife-torn country, have not published specific plans to improve national airline safety performance. The Asia-Pacific airlines suffer jointly from the consequences of public perceptions about travel in the region. They could do worse dian to follow ICAO's advice to form a safety forum. • /// © FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL 15 - 21 February 2000
Sign up to
Flight Digital Magazine
Flight Print Magazine
Airline Business Magazine
E-newsletters
RSS
Events
