Continuing the recent trend of safety improvement, business aviation accidents declined nearly 50 percent during the first three quarters of this year compared with the same period last year, according to statistics released by Boca Raton, Fla.-based industry safety analyst Robert E. Breiling Associates. While the decrease in flight hours–estimated by many to be between 20 and 30 percent–may have much to do with the dwindling number of accidents, it does not account for all the improvement in the accident rate, especially the decrease in the number of fatal accidents. In the first three quarters of the year, U.S. business jets and turboprops experienced 27 accidents, including four fatal, compared with 52 accidents– 17 of them fatal–in the first nine months of 2008.
The business jet category suffered no deaths and experienced only four accidents during the first three quarters of this year. In the same period last year, the sector suffered 19 accidents–five of them fatal, resulting in 20 deaths. The commercial/air-taxi segment saw a decline from four accidents– two of which resulted in 12 fatalities–in the first three quarters of last year to one nonfatal accident thus far in 2009, while the private/business category dropped from seven accidents, including two that caused three deaths, to a single nonfatal crash during the first nine months of this year. The fractional jet providers had no accidents so far this year; they experienced two in the first three quarters of last year.
More In Safety
