A Turkish Airlines Boeing 737-800 (TC-JGE) crashed short of landing at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport on Feb. 25, killing nine of the 135 people aboard (128 passenger and seven crew) and injuring more than 50 others.
The accident, which happened in good weather, killed both of the pilots flying the GE/Snecma CFM-56-powered jetliner and a third junior pilot observing. Turkish Airlines Flight 1951 from Istanbul was on final approach to land on Runway 18R when the twinjet slammed into a muddy field and broke into three pieces.
A recording of the final conversations between air traffic controllers and the pilots revealed nothing unusual in the final moments before the crash.
Media reports quote witnesses saying that the commercial transport on final suddenly dropped “like a stone” about 650 feet short of the airport’s perimeter fence. The number of fatalities might have been higher had it not been for the fact that there was no post-impact fire.
An official with the Dutch Safety Board said the cockpit flight recorder had been retrieved and was being sent to Paris for analysis. A readout was not expected until early March.
In 1992, Schiphol Airport was the scene of another fatal air crash when an El-Al cargo plane hit a high-rise building in the Amsterdam suburb of Bijlmermeer, unleashing an inferno in which 43 people died.
Pieter van Vollenhoven, the head of the Dutch Safety Board, said the B-737-800 had “very low forward speed” and had fallen almost straight down, pointing towards engine failure, but added that engine failure is still only “one of the possible scenarios” for the crash.
The Turkish Airlines crash followed by a week release of an International Air Transport Association (IATA) report that showed that there were more airline accidents, but fewer fatalities, in 2008.
The total number of fatalities from aviation accidents dropped from 692 in 2007 to 502 in 2008. This resulted in a 56% improvement in the fatality rate from 0.23 fatalities per million passengers to 0.13 per million passengers.
The global accident rate (measured in hull losses per million flights of Western-built jet aircraft) stood at 0.81 – or one accident for every 1.2 million flights. This is a slight deterioration on 2007 performance when the accident rate was 0.75 – or one accident for every 1.3 million flights.
There were 109 accidents in 2008 compared to 100 in 2007. The number of fatal accidents increased from 20 in 2007 to 23 in 2008.
IATA member airlines significantly outperformed the industry in safety. With 33 accidents, IATA members drove their accident rate downwards from 0.68 in 2007 to 0.52 in 2008. That is equal to one accident for every 1.9 million flights.
The IATA Operational Safety Audit (IOSA) is designed to raise the bar on airline safety management.
As of Jan. 1,2009, IOSA is a condition of IATA membership. Currently, 204 member airlines are among the 282 carriers on the IOSA registry. A further 21 IATA member airlines are in danger of losing the coveted safety recognition. Airlines that have not passed the quality control check by March, 31, 2009 will have their memberships terminated.
Flight safety is not universal, as IATA’s statistics readily show.
North Asia had a perfect record of zero hull losses in 2008. North America (0.58), Europe (0.42) and Asia / Pacific (0.58) all performed better than the global average.
Africa had an accident rate that was 2.6 times worse than the world average (2.12). However, this extends a year-on-year trend of significant improvements. In 2005, for example, the Africa rate was the worst in the world at 9.21. There was one Western-built jet hull loss with an African carrier in 2008.
The Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) had the worst accident rate in the world at 6.43 (7.9 times worse than the global average). The relatively small fleet of Western- built jet aircraft operated in the region means that even a few accidents can skew the numbers considerably. In 2005 and 2007 there were no accidents in the region. In 2006 two accidents drove the hull loss rate to 8.6. Last year there were three Western-built hull losses with CIS carriers.
Latin America and the Caribbean had a hull loss rate of 2.55 (3.1 times worse than the global average). The region’s carriers had five hull losses during 2008. Addressing infrastructure issues remains a top priority.
Middle East and North Africa saw its accident rate worsen to 1.89 in 2008 with two accidents involving carriers from the region.
IATA said three issues emerged in 2008:
- Runway excursions accounted for 25% of all accidents in 2008.
- Ground damage accounted for 17% of all accidents in 2008.
- A total of 30% of all accidents in 2008 noted deficient safety management at the airline level as a contributing factor.
“Our record on safety is impressive. But the fatal accident in Buffalo on Feb. 12 and all the 502 fatalities in air accidents in 2008 are human tragedies reminding airlines, regulators and industry partners everywhere that safety is a constant challenge and we must always strive to do better. Our target is zero accidents, and zero fatalities. Nothing less is an acceptable result,” said Giovanni Bisignani, director general and CEO of IATA.