New ICAO Safety Report reveals impressive 2011 progress

ICAO released its annual Safety Report today, summarizing 2011 results, and the conclusions are once again promising for global aviation.

Runway-related accidents involving scheduled commercial operations, an important safety priority being addressed at present by ICAO, airline and airport operators and other aviation groups, resulted in no fatalities in 2011 – down from 165 in 2010.

Overall fatalities resulting from air transport accidents also dropped by almost half from 2010 to 2011, down to 414 from 707 the previous year. This makes 2011 one of the safest years on record with respect to loss of life.

The growth in volume of commercial scheduled flights seen in 2010 continued in 2011 at the rate of 3.5 per cent. This increase coincides with an increase of 3.7 per cent in the global real Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

The number of accidents attributed to scheduled commercial flights increased in 2011 to 126, compared to 121 in 2010. This increase is consistent with the related increase in traffic and therefore did not significantly affect the global accident rate, which remained stable at only 4.2 accidents per million departures.

ICAO continues to concentrate its accident reduction efforts on multidisciplinary, collaborative efforts between its States and industry groups with a focus on incidents arising due to runway-related concerns, controlled flight into terrain and loss of control in-flight.