Business is booming for air safety investigators around the world. Following a period of relative calm in 2017, the safest year on record for passenger airlines, there has now been a steady uptick in both accidents and fatalities. In fact, according to statistics collected by the Air Safety Network, the number of accidents since the end of 2017 is now above the five-year average. Two Boeing 737-8 Max accidents since October 2018 have not helped; collectively, these events have accounted for the loss of 346 lives.
So, why do airplanes crash? There are some usual suspects such as “gravity beats lift” or “drag defeats thrust,” but to really determine cause, investigators subscribe to an accident-causation model. Personally, I like James Reason’s Swiss cheese model of accident causation since it is a useful tool to explain very complex events.
Pilot, safety expert, consultant, and aviation journalist Stuart “Kipp” Lau writes about flight safety and airmanship for AIN.
More In Accidents
