3 Things You Need to Know about the Air Travel Safety

A data based analysis using NTSB aviation accident data from 1982.

Xinjie Qiu
Sep 1, 2018 · 5 min read
Image source: www.refinery29.com

Introduction

With more and more traveller choose airplane as their primary long distrance transportation method for its convinence, the safety is also a major concern. It’s nature to ask how safe the air travel is, with questions such as the following:

1. When is the most dangerous time during each flight phases?

2. Is airplane more safe or less safe during the last few decades?

3. Which airplane has the highest fatal accidents?

Image source: www.ntsb.gov

When it comes to aviation accident investigation, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is the authority. The NTSB is an investigative agency responsible for civil transportation accident investigation. When requested, the NTSB will assist foreign governments with accident investigation. Therefore, I used data from NTSB database, to take a closer look at these questions.

BTW, just in case you are curious, when it comes to the U.S. authority which regulates the civil aviation, it is the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).


The scrope of the NTSB Data

The NTSB make its data vailable to the public through its database website. The description of the NTSB data is quoted from NTSB:

The NTSB aviation accident database contains information from 1962 and later about civil aviation accidents and selected incidentswithin the United States, its territories and possessions, and in international waters. Full narrative descriptions may not be available for dates before 1993, cases under revision, or where NTSB did not have primary investigative responsibility.

The data used in this analysis is not directly from NTSB though, it is from the Kaggle NTSB aviation accident dataset (upto Dec 2017) uploaded by Kheirallah Samaha. This dataset contains 81,013 accidents/incidents from 178 countries, with majority (76,188) in the United States. There were 31 field as a part of the data, including: ‘Event.Date’, ‘Location’, ‘Country’, ‘Make’, ‘Model’, ‘Amateur.Built’, ‘Number.of.Engines’, ‘Total.Fatal.Injuries’, ‘Broad.Phase.of.Flight’, etc.


Question 1: When is the most dangerous time during each flight phases (taxi, take off, cruise, landing?)

In the chart below I am interested in which flight phase has more fatal accidents.

Figure 1: Fatal accident percentage during each flight phase

It turns out in the NTSB data, The most common phase during which fatal accidents happens are during maneuvering (26%), cruise (20%), takeoff (16%), and approach (14%). It is no wonder that FAA states in its Airplane Flying Handbook (FAA-H-8083–3B):

Pilot’s fundamental responsibility is to prevent a loss of control (LOC). Loss of control in-flight (LOC-I) is the leading cause of fatal general aviation accidents in the U.S. and commercial aviation worldwide. LOC-I is defined as a significant deviation of an aircraft from the intended flightpath and it often results from an airplane upset. Maneuvering is the most common phase of flight for general aviation LOC-I accidents to occur; however, LOC-I accidents occur in all phases of flight.

FAA and other air safety authorites made a lot of efforts to regulate and train the pilot with upset prevention and recovery training to make sure aircraft is alwasy maintained under pilot’s control.


Question 2: Is airplane more safe or less safe during the last few decades?

Air travel becomes more and more affordable. It is a very common choice for long distance travel, especially for trans-continental, or international travelers. By looking at the NTSB accident data during the last four decades, there’s a clear pattern of both less fatal accidents and less fatality, indicating the airplane is safer over the last 40 years.

Figure 2: Year to year fatal accident rate and fatality rate

The only unusually fatality spike was in 2001, which is the tragic historical 9/11 events with 4 airplanes crashed in one day.

Possible reasons contribute to the increased safety trend in aviation accident might be due to more rigid pilot training, more strict TSA screening, better safety management program implemented, and more advanced safety technology, etc.


Question 3: Which airplane has the highest fatal accidents?

Figure 3: Fatal accident percentage for each aircraft model

The NTSB data shows about 26% fatal accidents from Cessna, another 19% from Piper. 9% from Beech.. It should not a surprise considering Cessna, Piper Aircraft, and Beechcraft were the “Big Three” in the field of general aviation manufacturing. The larger number of aircrafts manufactured by these companies make their models popular, increasing the base population. It’s not necessary that these aircrafts are faulty. More data is needed to assess the aircraft safety, including but not limited to the number of each aircrafts model been manufactured, the number of each model is still in service, etc. On the other hand, when you travel as a passenger with commercial airlines, you are less concerned about fly in these relatively small general aviation airplanes.


Conclusion:

In this article, we took a look at the aviation safety is according to NTSB data.

  1. Maneuvering, cruise, takeoff, and approach are the four most dangerous flight phases causing fatality.
  2. Aviation fatal incident events are less and less over the years, aviation fatality rate is also declining, indicate the trend of air travel safety.
  3. Cessna, Piper, Beech are the there most popular general aviation aircraft manufactures, making them the most fatality accident related aircraft models. But you should be less concerned about these general aviation aircraft models when you travel with airlines.

So, my dear friends who is reading at this article all the way to this end, do you feel it’s more safe to travel by airplane?

To see more technical details about this analysis, click on the link to my Github, whcih is available here.


Disclaimer: the analysis provided here is designed to provide helpful information on the subject discussed. It is from casual observation only. The findings here are not from the result of a formal study. The publisher and author of this article are not responsible for any travel decision based on this analysis, and are not liable for any damages or negative consequences from the such decision, to any person reading or following the inforamtion in this article. References are provided for informational purposes only and do not consititute enddorsement of any government agency.

Xinjie Qiu

Written by

data scientist, digital marketer, aviator, robotics

Welcome to a place where words matter. On Medium, smart voices and original ideas take center stage - with no ads in sight. Watch
Follow all the topics you care about, and we’ll deliver the best stories for you to your homepage and inbox. Explore
Get unlimited access to the best stories on Medium — and support writers while you’re at it. Just $5/month. Upgrade