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2014 not the safest year for aviation: CBC report

And we still don't really know what happened to Malaysia Airline Flight
MH370, which disappeared mysteriously on March 8 with 239 people
onboard, setting off an international hunt in the southern reaches of
the Indian Ocean.

Airlines accidents are rare, and 2013 was, in fact the safest year on record for air travel, measured by the death toll.  

But 2014 has already broken the improving aviation safety pattern of
recent years. The death toll so far this year already surpasses the
number for each of the three previous years.

Here's a quick look at aviation safety by the numbers. All statistics below are worldwide, unless stated otherwise.

There were 19 aviation accidents that involved fatalities in 2013. Since 1946, only 2012 had fewer.

Only 10 of those fatal incidents were on commercial passenger
flights, and matches the lowest number ever, for the fourth time, along
with the years 2004, 2009 and 2012.

The annual average for the first four years this decade was 21.5 air
accidents with fatal outcomes. The annual average in the 1970s was 40,
almost twice as many.

For 2013, there was one fatal accident for every 1.9 million flights,
which was better than the five-year average of one per 1.6 million
flights.

According to Flightglobal, a data and information source on the
aviation industry, "based on this metric, airline operations are now
almost three times safer than they were 20 years ago."

Last year, 220 passengers and crew were killed (162 of them during
commercial travel.) That's the fewest airline fatalities in more than 60
years, though it is a statistic that specifically excludes acts of
violence. 

The annual average for the first four years of this decade, 490, is one-third what the annual average was in the 1970s.

Last year, three billion people flew on 36.4 million flights.

This month, July 2014, has 2.9 million scheduled flights and 395
million scheduled global airline seats.

That's a two per cent increase
in flights and a four per cent increase in seats from last July.

Only 18 per cent of the world's airports have an average of more than 50 scheduled flights per day.

The busiest airspace in the world is above Atlantic City
International Airport on the eastern seaboard of the U.S. (40° N, 75°
W). Each day, some 5,500 flights cross those coordinates.

An international survey of 2,000 aviation personnel by Flightglobal
in the fall of 2013 identified certain issues these individuals
considered "significant threats" to airline safety:

• 38 per cent said fatigue/work practice involving pilots, engineers and air traffic controllers;
• 33 per cent said a shortage of experienced personnel;
• 28 per cent cited complacency;
• 27 per cent identified airline management experience, attitude and/or culture.

Just over half, 52 per cent of those surveyed, expected airline
safety would improve, while 13 per cent said it would get worse over the
next five years.