The number of plane crashes and deaths per year is declining, despite what may seem like increasing numbers of crashes.
Recent plane crashes include the Egypt Air disaster in the Mediterranean that killed all 66 people on Thursday, May 19 and the Fly Dubai flight that crashed in Russia killing 62 people in March.
So far in 2015, 266 people have died in 17 fatal air plane incidents.
However, the long term trend is for declining numbers of airplane disasters and people killed.
Between 1965 and 2015, the average number of fatal airplane incidents per year was 89, but that has dropped to an average of 50 in the last five years.
The numbers of passengers and crew who died in incidents has followed the same trend.
The average deaths per year between 2011 and 2015 was 743, compared to the long-term average of 1584 fatalities each year for the past fifty years.
Dr Ian Douglas from UNSW’s School of Aviation explained to SBS in 2015 that technologies the aviation industry used in recent times were more advanced than in decades past.
For example, the Airborne Collision Avoidance System means planes do not collide in mid-air, by making each airplane monitor the space around itself and alerting pilots to take actions to avoid collisions.
Advanced technology was not as available in decades past and improvements in technology means aviation today is less open to human error.
“There’s much better radar control even on the ground now,” Dr Douglas said.
Dr Douglas said the industry had a culture of learning and each time there was an incident, the industry asked what went wrong, rather than who to blame.
The reason why airplane disasters might seem like they are increasing might be due to their proximity to Australia in recent years, Dr Douglas said.
The Malaysia Airlines flights in 2014 both claimed Australians’ lives, with a high amount of news coverage for each incident.
Although the trend is for fewer crashes and deaths, 2014 had more deaths than any year in the previous decade, but the number of incidents did not increase.
While 2014 seemed to have a high amount of air disasters, Dr Douglas said the year broadly followed the trend of fewer air disasters.
The worst air disaster on record was the 1985 Japan Airlines flight, which crashed on Mount Osaka in Japan where 520 passengers and crew died.
Aviation expert Captain Desmond Ross told SBS in 2014 the magnitude of air disasters was large.
“I do believe that there have been years where there have been more accidents and more casualties,” Captain Ross said.
“This year has been a dramatically bad year in terms of the major incidents that have occurred… [and] for public relations and media coverage of aviation," he said in 2014.
“But statistically on numbers I would suggest it’s still safer than driving your car from here to Parramatta to go on an airplane.”
