Despite an improvement in US civil aviation accident rates, 2006 saw more than twice the number of deaths for airline (Part 121) operations than 2005.
National Transportation Safety Board statistics show the accident rate for scheduled and non-scheduled carriers improved to 1.58 per million flying hours, which compares favourably with the 1.59 posted in 2004 and was better than the 2.06 per million hours for 2005. In 2006 there were 300,000 more flights, taking the total to 11.4 million movements.
Last year saw 50 deaths in two airline accidents, 28 more than the previous year, when there were three fatal accidents. The NTSB says: "The number of accidents in all segments of civil aviation was less than in 2005, with general aviation recording the lowest number of accidents and fatal accidents in 40 years."
Source: Flight International
