1. Introduction
There are approximately 2 million flights per year in UK regulated airspace. SRG is responsible for safety oversight of civil aviation in the UK, which includes licensing, approving and monitoring:
The CAA also carries out oversight of around 75 design organisations on behalf of EASA.
Air travel is already the safest form of transport, and is continuing to improve. The worldwide rate of fatal accidents for public transport operations is now only 0.2 per million flying hours and the UK is among the world leaders in terms of its national safety record.
Figure 1 below shows the general fall, worldwide, in fatalities for Western Built Jets with a maximum take-off weight of greater than 5,700kg, being used on airline operations, excluding business jets. Third party fatalities, such as fatalities on the ground, are not included, simply to ensure consistency in the dataset since this information is not always available. The data is shown over a 21 year period (1985 to 2005) using a three year
moving average to smooth out the annual variation. Thus the data entry for 1987 is actually the average rate of the years 1985 to 1987, and so on.
Figure 1. Rate of Fatalities - Worlds Wide Large Western Built Jets (3 year moving average)
Further detailed information is available in CAA publications CAP681 Global Fatal Accident Review and CAP735 Aviation Safety Review.In the context of this falling worldwide rate of fatalities, the following sections present statistics that provide an appreciation of the rate of accidents and fatalities specifically for the UK.
For comparison purposes, the majority of the charts shown use the same time period (1996-2005). However, note that the quality and availability of data differs for each industry sector, so care should be taken when making direct comparisons between them. The most comprehensive data is available for large public transport aircraft. All rates have been shown as three year moving average, which helps to highlight any trends.
Accident and Serious Incident data have been shown in tables for ease of reference. Again third party fatalities have been excluded from the data.
The data is divided into the following Industry sectors:
Most accident statistics refer to fatal accidents; these are events where there is a fatality during, or in a limited period following, an aircraft accident. Non-fatal accidents and serious incidents are often omitted from safety statistics but the CAA believes they have an important role in alerting industry to events that could be the precursor to an accident. Where appropriate, the data in the rest of this section includes fatal accidents, non-fatal accidents and serious incidents.
2. UK Large Public Transport Aeroplanes
This section refers to UK registered or operated aeroplanes with a maximum take-off weight of greater than 5,700kg on public transport operations.
When considering the fatal accidents in a single country, such as the UK, the number of accidents is small, and so a single accident is much more apparent in the statistics than would be the case when presenting data for the world as a whole. In the UK, the catastrophic loss of life in two particularly severe accidents in the 1980s dominates the UK accident record. There have been subsequent fatal accidents in the UK, but the loss of life has been much lower; in fact, since 1990, the UK's rate of fatalities in public transport accidents has remained very low (figure 2).
Figure 2. Rate of Fatalities - UK Registered/Operated Large Public Transport Aeroplanes (3 year moving average)
The fatal accidents to UK registered or operated aircraft included in Figure 2 are:
Figure 3. Rate of Fatal Accidents, Non-Fatal Accidents and Serious Incidents - UK Registered/Operated Large Public Transport Aeroplanes (3 year moving average)
Fatal Accidents
Non-Fatal Accidents
Serious Incidents
Table 1. Number of Fatal Accidents, Non-Fatal Accidents and Serious Incidents - UK Registered/Operated Large Public Transport Aeroplanes
Within the data shown above, there is a wide range of aircraft. To provide a more detailed picture, these can be broken down into 'large' jets, 'business' jets and turboprops. Figure 4 and Table 2 show the rates and numbers of fatal accidents, non-fatal accidents and serious incidents for these three classes of aircraft.
Figure 4. Rate of Fatal Accidents, Non-Fatal Accidents and Serious Incidents - UK Registered/Operated Large Public Transport Aeroplanes (3 year moving average)
Comparing the rates in Figure 4 with the numbers of events in Table 2, it can be seen that
Table 2. Number of Fatal Accidents, Non-Fatal Accidents and Serious Incidents 1996 - 2005, by Class of Aircraft
3. UK Large Public Transport Helicopters
This section deals with UK registered or operated helicopters with a maximum take-off weight of greater than 2,730kg on public transport operations. Figure 5 shows the rate of all public transport helicopter events.
Figure 5. Rate of Fatal Accidents, Non-Fatal Accidents and Serious Incidents - UK Registered/Operated Large Public Transport Helicopters
Fatal Accidents Non-Fatal Accidents Serious Incidents Offshore 1 8 6 Emergency Services 0 6 2 Other 0 2 2 All Aircraft 1 16 10
Table 3. Number of Fatal Accidents, Non-Fatal Accidents and Serious Incidents 1996 - 2005, by Type of Operation - UK Registered/Operated Large Public Transport Helicopters
Table 3 divides large helicopters into three groups: Offshore (serving the gas and oil industry) which forms the majority of large helicopter operations, Emergency Services and 'Other'. There has been one fatal accident in the last 10 years: In July 2002, 11 people were killed when an S76 helicopter crashed into the sea and was destroyed following the failure of a main rotor blade.
4. UK General Aviation
The fatal accident rate for General Aviation has been produced using the hours flown by all UK registered aircraft below 5,700kg mtwa as it is not possible to separate out the hours flown on non-public transport activities. However, it is felt that it is reasonable to assume the majority of the hours flown by these aircraft will fall under the category of General Aviation.
Figure 6. Fatal Accident Rate - UK Registered General Aviation Aircraft <5700kg mtwa (3 year moving average)
The aircraft are divided into aeroplanes, helicopters and 'other' aircraft, such as gliders, microlights, gyroplanes, airships and balloons, on non-public transport activities. Figure 6 shows the fatal accident rate divided into these three general classes. Aircraft within the class referred to as 'other', in particular, may be engaged in recreational aviation activities and entering challenging situations with the full awareness of the occupant.
From Figure 6, it can be seen that the fatal accident rate for aeroplanes has been showing a general downward trend, whilst the rate for helicopters has been reasonably stable over recent years. The fatal accident rate for other general aviation aircraft remains considerably higher than for aeroplanes and helicopters.
5. Conclusion
The UK accident and fatality rates remain low, and are amongst the lowest in the world. However, there is no room for complacency and the CAA, in conjunction with industry, continues to strive for further improvements. The items included in this Safety Plan are designed to contribute to the ongoing improvement of UK flight safety.
