Originally Posted by
donotdespisethesnake
I certainly hope that improved safety has resulted in a reduction of major accidents, but one should be careful about drawing conclusions from short term trends. Given the overall low rate of major accidents, there is quite a high probability of periods with none occurring.
If aviation disasters where occurring at about the same rate as they did 50 years ago, given the several fold increase in aviation traffic, we'd have a major accident every week instead of a few per year. That's not a short term trend, and it says volumes about the massive improvements that have been made in aviation safety. The improvements have been pretty much across the board - better aircraft, better aircraft systems, better training and improved CRM, TCAS, GPWS, etc.
Which is not to say we can rest on our laurels - there is still room for improvement. New "unintended consequence' problems are cropping up. For example there have been several recent accidents related to the crew not understanding or properly interfacing with the aircraft automation.