Alarming Figures that will Need Six Sigma

Posted by: meikah | 6 November 2007 | 10:13 pm

An article on New York Times about a month ago boasted of a 65% decrease in fatal airplane crashes. It’s deemed as the golden age of safety, the safest period, in the safest mode, in the history of the world.
Should we be happy about this? Look at the following figures:

1. In 1996, two (2) infamous crashes that together killed 375 people.
2. The rate dropped by about 65% to 1 fatal accident in about 4.5M departures, from 1 in nearly 2M in 1997.
3. Around the world, there have been 7 crashes this year that killed more than 20 people each.
4. The Flight Safety Foundation recently calculated that if the 1996 accident rate had remained the same in 2006, there would have been 30 major accidents last year. Instead, there were 11.

There are however sustained efforts to address the problem.

• improving equipment, like cockpit instruments that help planes steer clear of mountains when visibility is poor, and reliable jet engines
• conducting “unstabilized approaches,” meaning pilots had to fiddle with flaps, throttle and other controls just before landing
• developing better guidance for pilots to follow flight paths precisely and stay farther away from mountains in the area
• better signs on taxiways to prevent planes from moving into the path of other aircraft

Policy initiatives:

• acquire new planes
• more “safety summits”
• a national commission on aviation safety and security led by VP Al Gore in 1997

The trend to watch out for: air and runway traffic will double by 2025

Source:
Fatal Airplane Crashes Drop 65%

*Photo from Stock.Xchng

 Filed under: Data, Data Analysis, Aviation | |