Originally Posted by
Pugilistic Animus
It's the same and it's different at the same time. The airplane must pass the certification process for carrying cargo but it's very difficult to certify a COMBI due to proximity to the passengers and some of the procedures to starve fires of oxygen would be quiet deleterious and ultimately fatal
Further, while they don't talk publicly about it much, the regulators treat cargo operations as more 'expendable' than passenger operations. Examples being the different treatment of Li batteries, and the exemption of cargo aircraft with more than two engines from the requirements of EDTO.
As a result, the fatal accident rate of cargo operations is significantly higher than it is for passenger operations.