Aviation safety had advanced considerably since its origin, over one hundred years ago. In recent years, heavy passenger aircraft, for civilian use, is still being designed and produced by 2 major manufactures: Airbus (European) and Boeing (United States). Both of these companies have placed a heavy emphasis on safety equipment – which is a billion dollar industry in and of itself. As such, air safety is a major selling point for these companies. All of this makes sense, since a poor safety record would be disastrous to the survival of the corporation.
Aviation Safety Features
Several standard safety features have been incorporated into modern aircraft, such as evacuation slides (for swift passenger exit, in an emergency), features that will prevent engine failure and landing gear that is designed to be lowered, even after loss of power. Modern aircraft design also includes advanced computerized avionics with multiple alert and recovery systems.
Aviation Fatality Statistics
Statistically, air travel is the safest form of transportation, when measured in calculations that take into account the number of passengers and the number of miles traveled. This equates to air travel being approximately six times safer than travel by automobile and two times as safe as travel by rail. It should be noted, though, that when measuring the number of fatalities against the number of passengers transported, buses provide the safest form of transportation. These statistics are the ones that are used by insurance companies when they calculate the insurance rates for travel by air.
When calculated for fatality rates, for every 1 billion kilometers traveled, rail travel has 12 times the fatality of air travel. Travel by automobile has a statistical fatality rate which is 62 times that of air travel. Once again, though, buses have proven the safest form of travel when measured by the number of fatalities in relation to 1 billion kilometers traveled. Conversely, when considering journeys, as opposed to kilometers traveled, the numbers are quite different. For every billion journeys traveled, air transportation is 3 times more dangerous than auto travel and almost 30 times as dangerous than travel by bus.
Please note that this article is for informational purposes only and is not intended as legal advice.
For more information, (click here) to contact Attorney Chris Searcy serving West Palm Beach, Florida.