Some 708 aviation occurrences were reported in 2017 to the U.K. Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB), which deployed investigators to 38 accident sites, including the sites of 16 fatal accidents, the AAIB said in a report released today.
The Annual Safety Review, 2017 said that the 16 accidents resulted in 28 fatalities.
Most of the fatal accidents involved general aviation aircraft, the report said, adding that the most frequently cited causal factors were loss of control–in flight (LOC-I) and weather-related issues.
The report noted the worldwide absence of fatal accidents involving passenger jet airliners in 2017, but Crispin Orr, the AAIB’s chief inspector of air accidents, cautioned that two fatal crashes in February of this year provided a “reality check” that fatal crashes “are not a thing of the past.”
Those two accidents were the Feb. 11 …
