By Robert Wall
LONDON--The disappearance of an Indonesia AirAsia jetliner with
162 people on board caps a torrid year for the aviation industry
involving a spate of high-profile crashes. Accident data indicates,
though, that flying remains safe.
AirAsia Flight QZ8501 lost contact with air traffic control
Sunday on a flight to Singapore from Surabaya, Indonesia, as it was
climbing to a higher altitude to avoid stormy weather, officials
said. Contact with the Airbus Group NV A320 jet, which can seat 180
passengers, was lost at 7:24 a.m. local time--almost two hours
after takeoff.
The disappearance follows a series of ill-fated flights this
year, of which two belonged to Malaysia Airlines. In March, one of
its Boeing Co. 777s went missing with 239 people on board en route
to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur, and the wreckage still hasn't been
located. And in July, another 777 belonging to the Malaysian
carrier was downed over eastern Ukraine, killing all 298 aboard in
the year's deadliest air accident.
An Air Algérie flight also crashed in July while flying to
Algeria from Burkina Faso. All 116 people on the plane died.
Despite these accidents and a series of others during the
summer, the loss of life during 2014 before the disappearance of
the AirAsia plane Sunday was still below the 10-year average of 676
fatalities, according to data from the Aviation Safety Network, an
affiliate of the not-for-profit Flight Safety Foundation. Crashes
this year had led to 526 fatalities before contact was lost with
the AirAsia jetliner, the group said.
"It will probably come as a surprise to most people, but really
it was a very safe year," said Paul Hayes, director of safety at
aviation consultancy Ascend.
The number of fatalities from plane crashes this year is a long
way off the 1,074 people who were killed in 2005. The figures were
much higher in the 1970s and 1980s, when far fewer people flew.
The International Air Transport Association, which represents
more than 200 carriers, said this month that accident rates this
year through September were below the five-year average, with 2.1
crashes per 1 million flights.
Accident rates this year "still continue the trend of increasing
safety, " Mr. Hayes said. "It is very difficult to get over not
only how safe airline flying has become but how much safer it is
than even just a decade ago."
The aircraft insurance industry has been hit hard this year,
exacerbated by a series of attacks on airports, potentially leading
to a rise in premiums. Attacks on airports in Tripoli, Kabul and
Karachi have ratcheted up worry about the risk to aircraft sitting
in war-torn areas.
Despite the overall improvement in aviation safety, experts are
under pressure to reduce the number of aviation accidents as more
people fly. Safety experts in the U.S. and Europe are establishing
vast databases of flights to determine how flying can be made
safer.
Experts will be looking for lessons from any findings that
emerge from the disappearance of the AirAsia jetliner. France's air
accident investigation office, the BEA, on Sunday said it would
dispatch two investigators to Jakarta along with two technical
experts from Airbus to aid Indonesia's probe.
The BEA could help analyze the plane's so called "black boxes"
if they are recovered. Those devices, which store cockpit
conversations and system data, generally provide the best
information of what went wrong on a flight.
The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board said it would also
assist the investigation, if asked. Indonesia has lead
responsibility for any probe under international aviation
rules.
Write to Robert Wall at robert.wall@wsj.com
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