Boeing, Airbus make safest planes – study
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Nervous flyers might want to ensure they are sitting onboard a wide-body Airbus or Boeing aircraft when they next fly, after a study revealed that the world’s two largest aircraft makers also have the best safety records.
A new report by AirlineRatings.com found that the Airbus A380, A340, Boeing 777 and B787 are the world’s safest aircraft models, with no recorded fatal accidents in the last 10 years (2003-2013). The narrow-body B717 also had a perfect zero safety rating.
The airline review website analysed of the crash records of 55 different aircraft types over the last decade, and the while Airbus and Boeing scored well, the results were not so good for Eastern European manufacturers.
The LET410 aircraft, which is manufactured by Let Kunovice in the Czech Republic, was found to have been involved in 20 fatal crashes in the 10-year period, making it the world’s most dangerous aircraft. De Havilland’s Twin Otter aircraft was second, with 18 fatal accidents, while the Russian-made Antonov AN-12 and Ilyushin 76 tied third, with 17 each.
AirlineRatings.com’s editor, Geoffrey Thomas, said his company had tried to make the listings as relevant as possible to today’s travellers, removing piston-powered planes and smaller aircraft used mainly for charter work.
“The crash rates of aircraft that dominated the 1970s and 1980s but are no longer in passenger service are irrelevant today. We only looked at aircraft that are carrying passengers in 2013,” said Thomas. “Clearly flying on pure jet-powered aircraft is far safer as seven out of the 10 aircraft with bad crash rates are turboprops. Aircraft such as the 777, A380, A340, 717 and 787 have never had a fatality.”
Thomas added however, that while some aircraft such as the Twin Otter have a high crash rate, it did not mean that it is a dangerous aircraft.
“It’s actually a great aircraft but you have to look also at which airline is operating them and how and where they are flying,” said Thomas. “For instance operating into mountainous regions in a third world country with limited navigation aids can be dangerous.”
The report will be welcome for Airbus and Boeing, which have both had their share of bad publicity in recent years. In 2011, a French judge filed manslaughter charges against Airbus over the crash of an A330 aircraft off the coast of Brazil in 2009, while Boeing was recently forced to ground its B787 following a series of incidents involving its battery unit.
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