EASA Annual Safety Review 2013 Published

EASA Annual Safety Review 2013 Published

The European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) Annual Safety Review for 2013 is now available at: http://easa.europa.eu/system/files/dfu/199751_EASA_ASR_2013.pdf

In 2013, there were 18 accidents involving EASA Member State operated Commercial Air Transport aeroplanes.  EASA Executive Director Patrick Ky commented:

In 2013 there was no fatal accident in commercial air transport aeroplanes in the EASA Member States. Since 2007, there has been a marked decrease in the number of accidents and in the number of persons injured. This consistent trend indicates there is firm improvement in safety. However, we should never overlook that maintaining safety requires vigilance, as a single fatal accident can stop or even reverse this positive trend.

The 32 EASA Member States (the 28 European Union Member States plus Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland) now have a lower scheduled commercial air transport fatal accident rate per million flights (1.8) than any other region (which range from 1.9 for North America to 38.3 for Africa).

In 2013 there were 7 commercial air transport helicopters accidents, of which 3 were fatal. The most common type of helicopter accident was “loss of control in flight”.  Over the past 10 years the onshore sector have been responsible for 77% of the helicopter commercial air transport fatalities.

Aerial work accidents in 2013 were 12% lower for aeroplanes and 24% lower for helicopters than the annual averages for 2002-2011.  However, while there was a 35% reduction in the number of aerial work aeroplane fatal accidents aerial work helicopter fatal accident numbers decreased by only 2%. The top 3 operation types in fixed wing aerial work fatal accidents were fire-fighting, aerial survey and photography operations. For helicopters the top 3 were construction, ‘other’ and photography operations.

The number of accidents involving General Aviation light aircraft in 2013 has decreased by 10% when compared with the average annual GA accidents for 2008-2012, with a 16% reduction in fatal accidents.

On occurrence reporting generally, EASA report that:

At the end of 2013 there was a total of 800,614 occurrences in the ECR [the European Central Repository]. In the early years of the ECR, between 2006 and 2009, there was a steady increase in the number of occurrences that was made available by the Member States. Since 2009 the number of occurrences has begun to stablise in the range of 80,000 to 95,000 occurrences per year.

This indicates the Member States are uploading data more routinely.  EASA also note:

The pooling of such a large number of occurrences in a single database highlights the importance of the ECR as a usable resource that is available to EASA and the Member States in their analysis. The ECR provides a far greater amount of information than would available to any single Member State alone. The challenge is to continually improve the quality of the data provided by the Member States so that the ECR is able to provide enough detailed information to support the decision making process in its own right without the need to refer to other data or information sources.

UPDATE 20 October 2015: We cover the issue of the 2014 review.

UPDATE 2 July 2016: We examine the 2016 EASA Annual Safety Report.

UPDATE 19 June 2017: EASA Annual Safety Review 2017 Published

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