2023 'safest year for flying' by several parameters: IATA

In its ‘2023 Annual Safety Report’ for global aviation, IATA said aviation continues to make progress on safety with several 2023 parameters showing "best-ever” results.There were no hull losses or fatal accidents involving passenger jet aircraft in 2023, IATA noted Wednesday.However, there was a single fatal accident involving a turboprop aircraft, resulting in 72 fatalities. There were 37mn aircraft movements in 2023 (jet and turboprop), an increase of 17% on the previous year.Report highlights include:• The all accident rate was 0.80 per million sectors in 2023 (one accident for every 1.26mn flights), an improvement from 1.30 in 2022 and the lowest rate in over a decade. This rate outperformed the five-year (2019-2023) rolling average of 1.19 (an average one accident for every 880,293 flights).

• The fatality risk improved to 0.03 in 2023 from 0.11 in 2022 and 0.11 for the five years, 2019-2023. At this level of safety, on average a person would have to travel by air every day for 103,239 years to experience a fatal accident.
• IATA member airlines and IATA Operational Safety Audit (IOSA) registered airlines experienced no fatal accident in 2023.
• A single fatal accident occurred in 2023, on a turboprop aircraft, resulting in 72 fatalities. This is reduced from five fatal accidents in 2022 and an improvement on the five-year average (2019-2023) which was five.

As for the Middle East and North Africa region that covers Qatar and the GCC, the all accident rate improved from 1.30 accidents per million sectors in 2022 to 1.16 in 2023 and was also better than its five-year average of 0.96.While no accidents were related to Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) interference, it has emerged as a critical area of concern in the region.The 2023 all accident rate improved compared to 2022 for all regions with the exceptions of North America and Asia Pacific. No regions experienced a jet hull loss in 2023.Asia-Pacific recorded a fatal turboprop hull loss, a loss-of-control accident in Nepal in January 2023 with 72 fatalities. As a consequence, all regions except Asia-Pacific recorded a fatality risk of zero in 2023.IATA’s Director General Willie Walsh said, "2023 safety performance continues to demonstrate that flying is the safest mode of transport. Aviation places its highest priority on safety and that shows in the 2023 performance. Jet operations saw no hull losses or fatalities. 2023 also saw the lowest fatality risk and ‘all accident’ rate on record."A single fatal turboprop accident with 72 fatalities, however, reminds us that we can never take safety for granted. And two high profile accidents in the first month of 2024 show that, even if flying is among the safest activities a person can do, there is always room to improve. This is what we have done throughout our history. And we will continue to make flying ever safer.”