US Airlines Hit Safety Milestone

Locations in this article:  Denver, CO

Window on an AirlinerIt’s almost not hyperbole to say that there has never been a safer time to fly the American skies in the history of aviation.

The U.S. commercial aviation industry has gone two years without a single fatality and with only one major crash, according to an analysis by the Air Transport Association.

Statistically speaking, American fliers are safer than they have been in years, with their risk of dying in a crash shrinking from 68 per billion in the 1990s to only 19 per billion fliers this decade.

The statistic is even more impressive considering that it represents the first time in jet aviation history that two consecutive years have gone by without any fatalities. Previous to 2008 only  single years had passed without any deaths.

In 2007 and 2008 the commercial airline industry ferried approximately 1.5 billion passengers on hundreds of thousands of flights.

Industry officials attribute the improved safety record to better crew training, tighter government requirements, better equipment and improvements in technology.

Some of the improvements have made it more likely that passengers will survive violent crashes, such as the one that occurred in Denver last month.

In that incident all 115 people on board survived, despite the fact that the jet veered off the runway during takeoff, broke apart and burst into flames.

The challenge going forward is to continue to devise ways to make jets safer without having any recent crashes from which to learn, officials say.

And even if you’re flying abroad, the risks are still substantially lower than in the past.

A global aerospace consultancy released a report last week which revealed that there were 25 percent fewer fatalities worldwide in 2008 than in 2007.

Related links: USA Today, CNN, SmarterTravel.com, MarketWatch

By Karen Elowitt for PeterGreenberg.com.

Learn more about air travel in our Airlines & Airports section.

Get more help on Travel Safety & Security here.