Last year was the worst for air safety in the USA since 1985, according to figures released by the National Transportation Safety Board. During 1996, fatalities in the four US passenger airline accidents totalled 354, and there were eight deaths in two freighter crashes, Some 32 people on the ground were also killed as a direct result of the accidents.
In 1985, the figures for scheduled and non-scheduled flights totalled 639 casualties. In 1995, by comparison, there were only 67 airline fatalities.
Most of the deaths occurred in scheduled Part 121 operations, including 110 in the ValuJet McDonnell Douglas (MDC) DC-9 crash on 11 May in Florida and 230 in the loss of the TWA Boeing 747 on 17 July. Two passengers were killed on 6 July in Pensacola, Florida, when a Delta Air Lines MDC MD-88 suffered an uncontained engine failure.
Meanwhile, a Millon Air Boeing 707 freighter crashed in Ecuador on 22 October killing the crew of four and 30 people on the ground, and a Northern Air Cargo Douglas DC-6 crashed in Alaska on 20 July, killing its four crew. This compares to only six fatalities involving scheduled Part 121 flights for all of 1995.
In 1996 scheduled Part 135 operations, there were 14 deaths as the result of the 19 November collision of a United Express Beech 1900C and a Beech King Air 90 at the municipal airport at Quincy, Illinois. This compares to nine fatalities during 1995 for US scheduled regional airlines.
Including US general-aviation accidents, there were 1,056 fatalities up until the end of November, compared with 727 fatalities for all of 1995.
See Flight International, 15-21 January, 1997, for a review of world airline safety in 1996.
Source: Flight International
