DAVID LEARMOUNT / GENEVA
A study by Netherlands National Aerospace Laboratory (NLR) reveals that, while most air traffic management-related (ATM) accidents occur during taxiing, most fatal ATM accidents occur in flight. There have been 213 ATM-related accidents in 1981-2001 - most in North America and Western Europe, of which 29 were fatal.
Presenting its findings at the Flight Safety Foundation's European aviation safety seminar in Geneva, Switzerland, the NLR said flightcrew error was the primary causal factor in 53% of the accidents, and ATC in 28%. The remaining distribution of causes included 13% environmental factors and 6% aircraft systems.
Among the 29 fatal ATM accidents, 14 were caused by collisions between two airborne aircraft or manoeuvring to avoid it, eight were caused by collisions with moving aircraft on the ground, and four by landing-aid faults.
Collision with a vehicle, collision with a stationary aircraft on the ground, and collision between an airborne aircraft and another on the ground each caused one fatal accident. The most common cause of non-fatal accidents was collision of an aircraft with a vehicle on the ground.
By region Australia/Pacific and Central/South America scored the lowest accident rates and Africa the highest by a significant margin.
Source: Flight International
