Tue, Mar 23, 2004
Scheduled Operations Highlighted
On Monday, the National
Transportation Safety Board released preliminary aviation accident
statistics for 2003 showing an increase in several civil aviation
categories, including scheduled airliners, air taxis and general
aviation.
The total number of U.S. civil aviation accidents rose from
1,820 in 2002 to 1,864 in 2003. There were a total of 695
fatalities in all aviation accidents in 2003. The majority of
these fatalities occurred in general aviation and air taxi
operations. There were 351 fatal general aviation accidents,
up from 345 the year before. Total general aviation accidents
increased from 1,713 in 2002 to 1,732 in 2003. The accident rate
remained relatively unchanged from 6.69 in 2002 to 6.71 in 2003 per
100,000 flight hours.
There were three fatal accidents involving scheduled passenger
service last year: a Beech 1900 operated by Air Midwest crashed on
takeoff out of Charlotte, North Carolina, and a Northwest Airlines
DC-9 aircraft fatally injured a tug operator in Norfolk,
Virginia.
These two accidents,
operating under 14 CFR Part 121, resulted in 22 fatalities. A third
accident involving a 14 CFR Part 135 flight in the Bahamas,
resulted in 2 fatalities.
Air taxis reported 77 accidents in 2003, which shows an increase
from 59 in 2002. The total fatalities also increased from 35
to 45. The accident rate rose from 2.03 per 100,000 flight hours in
2002 to 2.61 in 2003. The accident rate for this segment of
aviation has been questioned by the SafetyBoard due to a lack of
precision in the flight activity estimates provided by the Federal
Aviation Administration (FAA).
The FAA made major revisions to flight estimates in 2002,
retroactive to 1992. In 2003, the FAA revised the flight hour
estimates for 1999-present.
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