"Sharp increase in plane crash deaths during 2018"

[AndyJS]

"The number of people killed in plane crashes rose sharply in 2018, according to new figures.There were 556 fatalities as a result of 15 accidents over the course of the year, compared with 44 deaths in 10 accidents during 2017.While 2017 was the safest year in aviation history, the Netherlands-based Aviation Safety Network (ASN) says 2018 was worse than the five-year average of 14 accidents and 480 fatalities.Twelve of 2018's fatal accidents involved passenger planes, while three related to cargo flights."

https://news.sky.com/story/sharp-increase-in-plane-crash-deaths-during-2018-11596607

[wiggy]

It’s an odd headline that, I can’t for the life of me think why they didn’t go “statistics show continuing improvement in aviation safety “, given they’ve got this quote at the end of the very same piece...

Overall, ASN says aviation safety has improved substantially over the past 20 years - despite increasing demand for global flights.

Harro Ranter, its chief executive, said: "If the accident rate had remained the same as 10 years ago, there would have been 39 fatal accidents last year.

"At the accident rate of the year 2000, there would have been even 64 fatal accidents. This shows the enormous progress in terms of safety in the past two decades."



:rolleyes:

[weemonkey]

"SKY News"

[DaveReidUK]

"SKY News"

Quite so.

To be fair to ASN, they do point out that 2018 was the third safest year ever (by number of fatal accidents) and ninth safest (by number of fatalities).

Aviation Safety Network releases 2018 airliner accident statistics (https://news.aviation-safety.net/2019/01/01/aviation-safety-network-releases-2018-airliner-accident-statistics/)

[MCDU2]

Damn lies and statistics.

[ATC Watcher]

2017 was an exceptional safe year mainly due to a few lucky escapes .So everybody knew 2018 was most probably going to be worse.
One has to look as the tendency over the years and indeed we are on the good side of it , especially considering the traffic growth in the last years
The stats that make headlines are mostly those with loss of life, the narrow escapes and/or the pure luck ones are not counted , But to continue to improve safety , that is those we should be looking at closely ( and we do) as well as those saved by exceptional airmanship ( that we do not really do yet ) . Lots to lean from those l , but in all honesty everyone is trying hard to make it as safe as possible. Most of the cowboy outfits of the past are long gone...

[GordonR_Cape]

The BBC had the same rubbish headline: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-46730478

Seems to be a lot of copy/paste journalism, without the faintest attempt at rational analysis.

[DaveReidUK]

The BBC had the same rubbish headline

Perhaps they thought their readers were intelligent enough to get past the title (which is of course factually correct) and to understand the subsequent "Air fatalities are falling over time" and "Flying has become much safer" headlines.

[Hotel Tango]

Most of the cowboy outfits of the past are long gone...

I'm not entirely sure about that one! Depending on where you look, there's still enough of them about in my book!

[EEngr]

It should have said "We don't know how to evaluate statistical trends of highly improbable events."

[pattern_is_full]

2018 did contain several spectacularly deadly LOC accidents (Cubana/Havana, Saratov/Moscow, Lion Air/Jakarta, Ju-Air/Alps). Plus a fairly major CFIT (Iran Aseman/Yaruj).

They happened to clump together in a certain 365-day-period we call "2018." Any one of the first three alone would account for how much 2018 exceeded the "average" number of fatalities.

From a safety-analysis point of view, the only possibly-useful pattern might - speaking very broadly - be "crew/systems interactions" for Saratov and Lion Air.

From the point of view of journalism, "today was pretty much like yesterday" is not news. It's "olds."

[alf5071h]

A problem with these types of statistics is the use of headline-catching parameters, together with the implication that these represent the future.
The bean-counters become body-counters; non fatal accidents are tolerated until there is a death.
This approach doesn’t relate to the overall risk involved. Past risk is historical where data includes both frequency of event and outcome severity (risk definition), but the future at best might only project the past frequency without any idea about outcome severity; accidents with the same aircraft type could range the loss of max pax load, to the crew only in a freighter. Thus future safety is not the same as historical views, however measured. EE #10

It more important to consider what is being done and will continue to be done to address the hazards identified by accidents, and projected hazards of the future with forethought.
A classic example is where safety initiatives - LOC training - have been based on body count, whereas the projected exposure of a much larger number of overruns should be of greater concern - the likelihood of future harm vs a low historical value based on fatalities.

The Airbus approach to Statistical Summaries provides a more balance view of the state of safety and relates to different technologies.
https://www.airbus.com/content/dam/corporate-topics/publications/safety-first/Airbus-Commercial-Aviation-Accidents-1958-2017.pdf

There could be an interesting debate re accident rate vs aircraft generation when placing the Lion 737 MAX accident in comparison to ‘new’ generations. Airbus define this version as level 3, but is the design philosophy still level 2 ?

[DaveReidUK]

Any one of the first three alone would account for how much 2018 exceeded the "average" number of fatalities.

I think you mean that any one of those would have caused 2018 to exceed the moving average.

How much it was exceeded by is, of course, due to all of the events combined.

[pattern_is_full]

I think you mean that any one of those would have caused 2018 to exceed the moving average.

The statistical probability (ahem!) is that you are correct. ;)