Boeing releases annual airline safety summary

The main goal of AirSafe.com is to provide the public with useful and reliable information about airline safety and security. One of the best sources for information about accident rates for specific airline models is Boeing's Statistical Summary of Commercial Airplane Accidents. The newest edition, covering the period from 1959 to 2012, was released in August 2013, and includes a variety of resources, including a summary of selected airliner crashes from 2012, as well as comparative data on the accident rates of various aircraft models.

This publication is very useful in part because it provides a snapshot of accident trends for different aircraft models and for different areas of the world. It is also useful for the AirSafe.com audience because it provides a different point of view. These differences are most noticeable if you compare AirSafe.com's safety review for 2012 with the list in the Boeing publication.

While there is some overlap between the two annual lists, particularly the crashes that resulted in passenger deaths, there are some key differences. Boeing, like much of the airline industry, has a focus on events that cause significant and unrepairable damage to aircraft, and their accident statistics reflect that focus. While AirSafe.com does make note of a number of nonfatal events, only those events that result in passenger deaths are used in any statistical comparisons on the site. Also, Boeing does not list events, even ones involving passenger fatalities, if it involved aircraft designed in the former Soviet Union, or events involving turboprop driven airliners.

In spite of those differences, Boeing's Statistical Summary is one of the industry publications that has very high quality data, and should be consulted by anyone who has an interest in airline safety, especially to answer specific questions about airliner accident rates and how they have changed over the last several decades.

Related resources
2012 Boeing Statistical Summary
2011 Boeing Statistical Summary
2010 Boeing Statistical Summary
2009 Boeing Statistical Summary
2008 Boeing Statistical Summary
2007 Boeing Statistical Summary
AirSafe.com's fatal events by aircraft model

Interview with Cockpit Confidential author Patrick Smith

Patrick Smith, airline pilot and author of the recently released book Cockpit Confidential, sat down with Dr. Todd Curtis of AirSafe.com to discuss his latest work, and to share his thoughts on other issues facing the airline industry.

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Listen to the Patrick Smith interview

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Buy the Book Today!

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Resources
2008 interview about crash of Spanair MD82
Earlier interview about his 2004 book, Ask the Pilot
Visit Patrick's site AskThePilot.com
Buy the book today!

Get the New Family Air Travel Guide from AirSafe.com

This new book from Dr. Todd Curtis of AirSafe.com provides parents who fly with children and children who fly alone with advice on how to avoid many of the difficult situations faced by families that travel, and also provides numerous tips on how to take the stress out of your next trip.

This book covers many of the most common problem areas faced by families that fly, including baggage, security, diaper changing, and unaccompanied child travel, and gives parents and children advice on how to deal with those problem areas.

Who is this Book For?
Whether you have never flown before with your family, or a veteran of dozens of trips, there are many potential problems and challenges that families face every time they fly, and in most cases a little bit of planning will allow you to either completely avoid a bad situation, make a potential problem less likely to ruin your trip, or allow you to more easily manage bad situations that may happen.

How to get this book
To get this newest AirSafe.com title, simply join the AirSafe.com mailing list at subscribe.airsafe.com. If you are already a mailing list member, look for the book link in your latest email, or contact AirSafe.com for a copy.

Severe winter storm in the eastern US forces airlines to cancel and delay flights

The winter storm that has swept through the northeast US the weekend before Christmas, forcing a number of airlines to cancel, delay, and reroute flights. JetBlue, United, and Virgin America were just some of the airlines that canceled flights, and experienced delays and other problems associated with the heavy snowfall associated with the storm.

If you plan to travel by air in the US in the next few days, even if your trip does not take you to the east coast, you should take the time to do the following:

• Check with your airline to see if your flight is affected
  
• Check the airline's web site to see if they are posting special notices about the storm
  
• Keep track of storm forecasts
  
• Be prepared to have your flight delayed, rerouted, or canceled

Many airlines are waiving change fees associated with any affects flights. Keep in mind that airlines are not obligated to provide any compensation for flight delays. Just about the only situation where you can get compensation for a delay is if you are significantly delayed because you were involuntarily bumped from a flight.

Additional Resources
Dealing with delays, bumping, and cancellations
How to make an airline complaint
General baggage advice
US flight delay data from the FAA

Newly Published Boeing Resource on Airline Accidents

The primary mission of AirSafe.com is to provide airline passengers and aviation professionals with reliable information about plane crashes and other issues or events related to aviation safety and aviation security. AirSafe.com and the AirSafe.com Foundation can't do this alone. They both rely on publicly available information for news events like recent crashes and for reliable data for determining things like fatal event rates for aircraft models.

Some data, like plane crashes and accident investigation reports, are very easy to find, often widely publicized, and sometimes published by authoritative sources like government agencies. Other data, for example the number of airplane flights for a particular model, are much harder to find. One of the best sources for information about accident rates for specific airline models is an annual publication from Boeing, the Statistical Summary of Commercial Airplane Accidents. The newest edition, covering 2008, was published in July 2009, and it provides a summary of last year's accidents as well as comparative data on the accident rates of various aircraft models.

Some of the key data from this publication is included within AirSafe.com, especially the Fatal Events by Aircraft Model page. Boeing's Statistical Summary is one of the industry publications that has very high quality data, and should be consulted by anyone who has an interest in airline safety, especially to answer specific questions about airliner accident rates and how they have changed over the last several decades.


You can download the most recent edition which covers 2008, and the previous one covering 2007 below. If you have an interest in how data like this is used to answer complex aviation risk and safety questions, you can also download two resources from AirSafe.com: selected portions of the book Understanding Aviation Safety Data from AirSafe.com founder Dr. Todd Curtis, or you can register for the free online class on how to systematically ask and answer an aviation safety question.

2008 Statistical Summary
2007 Statistical Summary
Online Class: How to Ask an Aviation Safety Question
Chapter 6 of Understanding Aviation Safety Data

Interview with Amanda Ripley, Author of "The Unthinkable"

This episode of the podcast features an interview with Time Magazine senior writer Amanda Ripley, author of the book "The Unthinkable: Who Survives When Disaster Strikes And Why."

Amanda has traveled the world, writing about and studying a number of disasters, including the attacks of 9/11, and the devastation of Hurricane Katrina. She currently covers both risk and homeland security issues for Time Magazine.

She has written for a number of other publications, including Congressional Quarterly, New York Times Magazine, Time Out, and Washington Monthly.

You can hear the podcast at
http://www.airsafe.com/podcasts/show59-ripley.mp3

Related information is available at
http://www.airsafe.com/podcasts/show59.htm

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