A Year of Aviation Mishaps

[Chananya Freedman]

Alright guys, here's a little digging into the brain, and into  history. 2009 has been a year with alot of airplane crashes--I don't know exactly how many---but alot, and I'm including the miracle in the Hudson in this.  My question is this: has this year seen a record for aviation crashes or has this frequency of mishaps occurred in the past? Information on this subject would be appreciated.

From what I see here (on Live ATC forums and on Yahoo news videos) there have really been alot of crashes and strange air incidences this year. Even though this is only my second year on this site, since I have joined it seems like there have been alot more. I would love to have more of a discussion on this.

Thanks guys,

[sykocus]

Without any cold hard statistics it's really impossible to say. There are many factors which lead to one's perception of events around them. As you say, you've frequenting the site for two years, now. It could be that recently you've been paying more attention to news of aircraft incidents, or that you've been visiting more news sources which report aircraft incidents more then you had in the past. It could even be that the mainstream media is covering aircraft accidents more then they did in the past. I remember hearing about a study done in Los Angeles in the 90's. People being polled were said they felt less safe in their community then in years past in spite of the fact that the number of violent crimes had gone down. However, the number of stories of crime that were covered in the evening news had actually gone up during the same period. Another factor maybe that after the Comair incident in LEX there weren't any fatal commercial aviation incidents in the US for over 2 years. I think it ended with the Colgan crash in BUF. The extended period w/o fatal accididents may add to the perception that this year is especially bad.

[MathFox]

Looking at the Aviation Safety Network "Safety Indicator" I'ld say this year is not much different from the previous 10 years:

13 accidents, 353 fatalities
» 10-year average:
14 accidents, 307 fatalities

(source: http://aviation-safety.net/statistics/period/barometer.php )

[ect76]

But we are, however, only half way through the year...

[Chananya Freedman]

You certainly have that one right hopefully, We wont have to many more! Or atleast if we do have they wont have such tragic outcomes!