The latest news that an Air India flight to London has crashed with 232 passengers onboard the Gatwick-bound flight may scare many about boarding flights around the world. But with hundreds of thousands of flights taking off and landing every day, how often do flights go wrong?
It is important to mention that plane crashes are statistically extremely rare, with aeroplane travel one of the safest forms of transportation with an average injury rate of 0.01 per 100 million miles travelled. But being made up of extremely advanced engineering and with the planes travelling at speeds more than 500mph things on very occasions do go wrong.
According to a study by MIT, the risk of death when flying is around 1 in 100 million, which is three times more likely than being struck by lightning at one in 33 million. The aviation industry has seen significant safety improvements in recent years, and despite the vast increase in the number of planes in the air, the incident rate hasn’t seen a sharp rise.
When was the last commercial plane crash?
Plane crashes on commercial airlines are very rare especially because of mechanical issues. Today’s (Thursday, June 12) Air India crash is the eighth commercial crash this year with the last incident happening on the Tropic Air Flight 711 when a smaller Cessna 208B plane was hijacked.
On landing the hijacker injured three of the 15 passengers but was shot dead by one of the passengers who was carrying a gun.
In February a larger Bombardier CRJ900 aircraft on Delta Connection Flight 4819 crashed upon landing at Toronto Pearson International Airport. It flipped upside down but despite the accident, all 76 passengers and 4 crew members survived with only 21 suffering injuries.
When is it most likely for plane crashes to happen?
More than half of all aviation crashes happen during landing and take-off, with statistics marking the first three minutes of a flight or the last eight minutes as the most likely time for things to go wrong. Those times mark on average around two per cent of an entire flight but account for 18% of all fatal incidents.
This is largely due to the decreased times pilots have to make decisions and choose what to do, while if both engines fail while cruising the velocity will allow the plane to glide and find the best place to land.
FOLLOW LIVE: Air India plane crash live as Gatwick-bound aircraft crashes with 53 Brits on board
What is the most likely reason for a plane crash to happen?
Human error accounts for the most likely reason for a plane to crash, with the pilot error accounting for around half of all aviation accidents. Mechanical failures are far less common accounting for around 20% of crashes, while bad weather , aircraft maintenance neglect, design defects and sabotage all make up small proportions.
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