Efforts to elevate safety standards in the commercial air transport industry in Africa contributed to a decline in 2016 in the number of total accidents, fatal accidents and fatalities in both jet and turboprop operations — and to a year with no fatal accidents in sub-Saharan Africa, according to the International Air Transport Association (IATA).1
IATA’s Safety Report 2016, made public earlier this year, says that in addition to the lack of fatal accidents, no jet hull loss2 accidents were reported in the 48 nations of sub-Saharan Africa,3 and the turboprop accident rate dropped to 3.31 per million flight sectors in 2016, down 42 percent from its 2011–2015 annual average.
“Clearly, the multi-year effort of aviation stakeholders to raise African safety standards is showing encouraging results,” said Gilberto Lopez Meyer, IATA senior vice president, safety and flight operations.
Overall, the report said, the global commercial ai…
