Fewer fatalities were recorded in European airline operations in 2016 than any other year in history, the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) said in its 2017 Annual Safety Review, published Wednesday.
The report said there were two fatalities, both of which occurred in a Jan. 8 accident involving a Bombardier CRJ-200 cargo flight near Akkajaure, Sweden. (“Upset by a False Cue,” ASW, April 2017) In comparison, the annual average number of fatalities for the 10-year period that ended in 2016 was 66.
For the year, more fatalities occurred in non-commercial airplane operations (78) than in any of the 10 other groups included in the study. Fatalities in that group averaged 94.4 over the 10-year period.
Six fatal accidents, with a total of 12 fatalities, occurred in 2016 involving specialized operations airplanes — those engaged in activities other than commercial air transp…
