Late last month, a helicopter and passenger airliner collided mid-air over the Potomac River in Washington DC, killing all 67 on board both aircraft. This week, a Delta Air Lines jet crashed on the runway in Toronto, catching fire and rolling upside down, though no one was killed. Between those two incidents, a commuter plane went down off the coast of Alaska, killing 10 people. Then on Wednesday a mid-air collision in Arizona left two people dead. Is aviation’s enviable safety record breaking down?
It helps to consider smaller and larger aircraft separately. We‘re often told flying is the safest mode of transport. But that depends. For commercial airliners it’s unquestionably true. But smaller commuter planes such as the one that crashed in Alaska have a higher fatality risk per hour compared to car travel, and the smallest private planes can be as much as 10 times more dangerous than driving.
The examples above are in fact only a subset of the 10 fatal air accidents in January in the US. Yet far from indicating an alarming spate of incidents, this was an all-time low for the month. Sadly, fatal crashes with smaller planes are not uncommon but here, too, the trend is generally in the right direction.