2003 ranks as safest for airline industry

By Seth Borenstein
Knight Ridder Newspapers

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WASHINGTON — Last year was the safest for the world's airline passengers.

Only 25 commercial airliners crashed in fatal accidents in 2003, by far the lowest number in modern aviation history, according to the Aviation Safety Network, a Netherlands-based independent organization that tracks plane crashes.

The 2003 performance was 26 percent lower than the record for fatal airline crashes: 34 in 2001, said Harro Ranter, the network's president. Between 1973 and 2002, the world averaged 50 fatal airliner accidents.

"It's amazing," Ranter said yesterday. "It was most definitely the safest year for airline passengers in the world."

The skies have been getting safer for decades. The 1970s averaged 61 fatal airliner accidents a year, the '80s averaged 53 and the '90s, 48. In the four years since 2000, the world averaged 33.

"A lot of the things that we have done over the past decade are paying off," said Eric Doten, director of the Center for Aerospace Safety/Security Education at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, Fla.

Doten attributed the lowered crash rate to better training, techniques and technology, particularly the devices that warn pilots when they're too close to the ground or that a midair collision is imminent. In addition, more pilots worldwide are training on improved flight simulators.

The United States had two fatal airline accidents in 2003: an Air Midwest flight that crashed on Jan. 8 in Charlotte, N.C., killing 21 people, and an Aug. 26 crash on Cape Cod, Mass., that killed two crew members.

Overall, the world's 25 fatal airliner accidents last year killed 677 people, the third fewest since World War II. Because far more people are flying far more miles, however, fatalities per mile are the lowest in history.

Until a Christmas Day crash killed 138 in the West African country of Benin, the world was on track for the fewest deaths.

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company