Civil and commercial aviation harmonized accident rate drops by 33 per cent

The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) and the International Air Transport Association (IATA) published their annual safety reports simultaneously for the first time ever today, reflecting impressively positive outcomes and a harmonized accident rate down 33 per cent for 2012 versus 2011.

The 2012 ICAO/IATA harmonized rate came in at 2.4 accidents per million flights for all commercial aircraft types above 5,700 kg. The figure is derived from safety-related events involving substantial aircraft damage or serious injury and is down from 3.6 accidents per million flights from when it was first developed and published in 2011.

“This new consolidated global accident figure reflects solid improvement and has been made possible largely as the result of the Global Safety Information Exchange (GSIE), a collaborative network established in 2010 between ICAO, IATA, the United States Department of Transportation and the European Commission,” commented ICAO Council President, Roberto Kobeh González. “The GSIE’s primary purpose is to enable the multilateral exchange of safety information, delivering more comprehensive analysis capabilities and better coordination of related risk reduction initiatives.”

The GSIE effort and joint publishing date with IATA support ICAO’s ongoing objective to optimize cooperation and coordination with key global aviation community safety partners. In the last year, the UN aviation agency has formalized cooperative safety agreements with the Airports Council International (ACI), the Civil Air Navigation Services Organisation (CANSO) and the Flight Safety Foundation (FSF).

The ICAO Safety Report is available free of charge on the UN Organization’s website at www.icao.int.