that The crew of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 that was launched this week failed to determine the cause of the plane’s disappearance.
All 239 people on board were presumed dead, and this incident remains one of the greatest tragedies and mysteries of the modern aviation era.
It also raised questions about aviation safety.
A flight attendant gives a safety presentation. Source: LightRocket/Getty Images
How safe is flying?
Statistically speaking, flying on a commercial airliner is the safest form of transportation ever undertaken, according to the US National Safety Council.
There are a range of estimates out there, but based on their analysis , it puts the odds of dying as a plane passenger at 1 in 205,552. This compares to a cyclist’s odds of dying at 1 in 4,050; 1 in 1086 drowning cases, and 1 in 102 car accident cases.
This is because along with the technological improvements that have occurred in aircraft over the decades, the entire international air travel system is carefully regulated.
Passengers evacuated from a burning plane at Fort Lauderdale Airport, Florida, in 2015. Source: Agence France-Presse
“The whole system is designed to make you safe,” American aviation writer and writer Christine Negroni told SBS News.
“We know who is in every plane around you, who controls the airspace around you, and how the vehicle is maintained. A car, train or bus doesn’t have that.
Are most accidents fatal?
The deadliest plane crash in history occurred in 1977 in Tenerife, the largest of Spain’s Canary Islands. Two planes collided on the runway, killing 583 people.
The International Air Transport Association (IATA), based in Canada, represents 290 airlines (or 82 percent of global air traffic). It says the five-year average as of 2012 was 75 accidents per year (roughly 11 of them resulting in fatalities) per 37.3 million flights per year. This means that 315 people have died annually in aircraft accidents over the past five years. But in 2017, there were only 19 deaths.
These statistics also reveal something Ms. Negroni said is largely poorly understood: Even if you’re unfortunate enough to get into an air crash, you’re more likely to survive it.
“The number that the US National Transportation Safety Bureau gives is that 95 percent of all accidents have survivors, which is the opposite of what people say.”
What are the safest airlines?
Geoffrey Thomas, an aviation journalist based in Western Australia, has developed a seven-star rating system to rank the world’s safest airlines on AirlineRatings.com. Australian travelers will be pleased to hear that Qantas and Virgin Australia are among the top 20 companies for 2018.
Mr Thomas’s rating system is based in part on an International Air Transport Association (IATA) operational safety audit of airline management and control systems. Airlines that pass the semi-annual IOSA audit automatically receive three stars.
“Safety has improved dramatically thanks to IOSA,” Thomas told SBS News.
“More than four billion people fly every year, and the number of deaths is very small. If you are flying in the United States, Europe or Australia, the chances of having an accident on a commercial aircraft are almost non-existent.
The ranking also takes into account each country’s legal and safety monitoring systems (things like air navigation and the quality of regulatory bodies); the EU blacklist that blacklists dodgy airlines; And the airline’s accident rate over the past decade (not including acts of terrorism or suicide).
Airframe losses (or an aviation accident that damages the aircraft beyond economic repair). Source: SBS News
“Flying is shrouded in mystery,” he said. “The magic of flying is also the secret of flying. Lufthansa estimates that 70% of people who travel by plane have some degree of fear of flying, and 30% of people have an extreme fear of flying and use safety as the first criterion when they make a booking.
Some areas are safer than others, too. International Air Transport Association (IATA) statistics show that serious accidents are more common in Africa and the Commonwealth of Independent States (i.e. the former Soviet republics).
What causes plane accidents?
Dr Ron Bartsch, president of Sydney-based aviation safety consultancy AV Law, said 85 to 90 per cent of accidents these days were caused by human error.
“Accidents are usually related to the human factor,” he told SBS News.
“Flying on an airplane is now 680 times safer than it was after World War II. Almost all of these developments, until about the mid-1990s, were due to technological development. The jet engine was more reliable, the development of radar, anti-collision systems, and “Large proximity warning and advanced simulation training have all led to an amazing reduction in the number of accidents.”
In fact, it’s more accurate to look at contributing factors rather than causes of accidents, Ms. Negroni said.
“No accident has just one cause. In the world of air safety, we always say that an accident is the result of a continuous chain of events. One break in that chain and the accident will not happen,” she said.
Could MH370 happen again?
Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 disappeared in March 2014 en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.
The Boeing-777 crew made last contact with the ground crew about 40 minutes after takeoff, and the plane was tracked by military radar for another hour as it deviated west from its planned course before disappearing. All 239 people on board were presumed dead, and tens of millions of dollars were spent on unsuccessful searches.
An independent Malaysian report on the flight was “unable to determine the actual cause of the disappearance”, but chief investigator Kok Sue Chun said: “We do not see that it could have been an event committed by the pilot.”
Many analysts, including Thomas, believe the pilot’s suicide is most likely.
“(With MH 370) we strongly suspect pilot suicide, which happens from time to time. “It is very terrifying, but as a percentage of the number of flights, about 13 cases in 50 years, it is almost unrecordable,” he added.
“But no one really knows what happened.”
Ms. Negroni says there are other possible explanations, which she detailed in her 2016 book, Crash Detectives.
These lines of inquiry include whether the plane suffered a sudden depressurization and that the pilot was affected by hypoxia (low oxygen) which could have impaired his skills and judgment (she argues that turns in the flight path show “clear evidence of unreasonable action”). Alarmingly, a 2006 study by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau cataloged 500 depressurization events over the past 30 years, most of them in commercial aircraft.
Ms. Negroni also says that the location of the galley above the electronics bay, which on other planes has seen liquid leak into equipment below it, could be a factor; Just like what happened on a Qantas flight between London and Bangkok in 2008 (the pilot was able to land that plane safely without electricity).
Airlines are required to be able to closely track their planes in flight, but Ms Negroni says Malaysia Airlines safety staff warned management seven months before MH370 disappeared that their systems could only track planes every half hour. She said ensuring airlines comply with tracking regulations is important to ensure such an event does not happen again.
Mr. Thomas said changes to the frequent tracking mandate are being rolled out globally.
