Accidents in Australia’s aerial application sector — agriculture spraying, spreading and firefighting — have inched up over the past three agricultural seasons to 16 accidents in 2015–16, the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) says.
Aerial application has had the second-highest accident rate of all operation types in Australia — 154.8 per million hours flown, according to ATSB aviation occurrence statistics reported in the 2015 edition of the annual Aviation Occurrence Statistics (Figure 1). The highest rate was recorded for non-Australian–registered recreational airplanes, the ATSB said in Aerial Application Safety: 2015–2016 Year in Review.
Figure 1 — Accident Rates by Operation Type, 2005–2013
