Fourteen commercial air transport accidents, including two fatal accidents with a total of three fatalities, were reported in Australia in 2013, the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) says (Table 1).
The ATSB’s most recent data review, Aviation Occurrence Statistics: 2004 to 2013, released in November, compared the 2013 total with the previous year’s single fatal accident, which resulted in one fatality. Data show that over the 10 years covered by the data review, the annual number of fatal commercial air transport accidents has ranged from zero to three, and fatalities have numbered as few as zero and as many as 18. There were 14 total accidents in both 2013 and 2012; over the 10-year period, the number in that category has been as low as 11 and as high as 29.
The number of reportable incidents and serious incidents involving commercial air transport aircraft increased “almost every year over the last 10 years,” the report said, characterizing the increases a…
