I don’t know why in the last few days many people around me have asked me what I think about the safety of this or that airline, or which airlines are the most or least safe for us.
I think that this sudden interest has something to do with the many articles that have just been published about a recent BEA report mentioning alleged breaches of certain safety rules at Air France with as a highlight a long article from La Tribune which reports on other equally worrying facts.
I will not venture further on the subject, aviation safety is a matter for professionals and therefore I am waiting to read what the professionals will say on the subject.
That said someone asked me a question that left me unanswered and actually inspired this slightly more entertaining post. “You who watch all the time, what are the most frequently featured airlines in Air Crash Investigation?“.
For those who don’t know, Air Crash Investigation is a show that dissects and analyzes air accidents. For those who are curious, here is the list of episodes and know that the last seasons are available on Disney +.
With Olivier we admit that it is one of our favorite series and that we even take a malicious pleasure to watch episodes in flight. But I also think that it is a very educational series that should interest all the people who are interested in air transport or even those who are afraid of flying. Indeed and paradoxically it shows all the efforts made every day to constantly improve air safety and that when something goes wrong it is most often due to a succession of highly improbable events. It is therefore rather reassuring and helps to understand many things that worry the passengers as long as they remain mysterious.
And it’s true that if we have the impression that some airlines appear more often than others, I never had fun to count the number of appearances of each one.
But first of all, even if I found the question interesting, I find the question badly put. It’s not because an airline appears in the series that it has a safety problem and sometimes it’s the opposite! A flight can end up in a perilous situation through no fault of the crew or the airline and the worst is avoided because of the quality of the pilots and their training! Then there are human errors in the cockpit, in air traffic control and many other factors for which it is difficult to make an airline responsible. In an episode I recently watched, the culprit was even the FAA !
In short, no hasty conclusions should be drawn from the following figures. I got them simply by looking at the list of episodes with an excel sheet and “cleaning” some data (military flights, private flights, government flights, trains…). On the other hand I kept the cargo. I counted the aircraft involved so when an incident involves aircraft from several airlines I counted each one even if one of them is not responsible for anything.
I could have done some grouping: put American Airlines and American Eagle together, for example. But should Air Inter be attached to Air France? Attributing a SwissAir crash to Swiss? US Air to US Airways? So I left things as they were.
And here is the result. And again, these numbers reflect editorial choices and no other conclusion can be drawn.
Airline | Number of appearances |
---|---|
American Airlines | 6 |
United Airlines | 6 |
Air France | 5 |
British Airways | 5 |
China Airlines | 4 |
Northwest Airlines | 4 |
US Air | 4 |
FedEx | 3 |
Garuda Indonesia | 3 |
Korean Airlines | 3 |
TWA | 3 |
Aeroflot | 2 |
Alaska | 2 |
Comair | 2 |
Continental Airlines | 2 |
Crossair | 2 |
Ethiopian Airlines | 2 |
KLM | 2 |
Malaysia Airlines | 2 |
Pacific Southwest | 2 |
Pan Am | 2 |
Qantas | 2 |
SAS | 2 |
TAM | 2 |
TransAsia Airways | 2 |
UPS | 2 |
Adam Air | 1 |
Aeromexico | 1 |
Aeroperu | 1 |
Air Asia | 1 |
Air Canada | 1 |
Air China | 1 |
Air Florida | 1 |
Air Illinois | 1 |
Air Inter | 1 |
Air Moorea | 1 |
Air Ontario | 1 |
Air Transat | 1 |
Aires | 1 |
Alitalia | 1 |
Aloha Airlines | 1 |
American Eagle | 1 |
American International Airways | 1 |
Ansett New Zealand | 1 |
Arrow Air | 1 |
Asiana Airlines | 1 |
Atlantic Airways | 1 |
Atlantic Southeast | 1 |
Atlantic Southwest Airlines | 1 |
Bashkirian Airlines | 1 |
Bristow | 1 |
British Airtours | 1 |
British Midland | 1 |
Cathay | 1 |
Chalk’s Ocean Airways | 1 |
Colgan Air | 1 |
Continental Express | 1 |
Copa Airlines | 1 |
Delta Airlines | 1 |
DHL | 1 |
Eastwind Airlines | 1 |
EgyptAir | 1 |
El Al | 1 |
Emery Worldwide | 1 |
Execuflight | 1 |
Fine Air | 1 |
First Air | 1 |
Flagship Airlines | 1 |
Flash Airlines | 1 |
Flydubai | 1 |
Germanwings | 1 |
Helios Airways | 1 |
Hughes Airwest | 1 |
Iran Air | 1 |
Itavia | 1 |
Japan Airlines | 1 |
Kazakhstan Airlines | 1 |
Kenya Airways | 1 |
LAM Mozambqiue | 1 |
Lamia | 1 |
LAPA | 1 |
Lauda Air | 1 |
Lion Air | 1 |
Loganair | 1 |
Manx | 1 |
Martinair | 1 |
Metrojet | 1 |
National Airlines | 1 |
Nigeria Airways | 1 |
Northwest Airlink | 1 |
Pakistan International Airlines | 1 |
Partnair | 1 |
Philippine Airlines | 1 |
Propair | 1 |
Proteus Airlines | 1 |
Reeve Aleutian Airways | 1 |
Santa Barbara Airlines | 1 |
Saudi Arabian | 1 |
SilkAir | 1 |
Singapore Airlines | 1 |
Skywest | 1 |
Sol | 1 |
Southwest Airlines | 1 |
Spanair | 1 |
SwissAir | 1 |
TACA | 1 |
TANS Peru | 1 |
Tarom | 1 |
Thai | 1 |
Trans colorado airlines | 1 |
Trans-Air Service | 1 |
Trigana Air | 1 |
Tuninter | 1 |
Turkish Airlines | 1 |
Uni Air | 1 |
United Express | 1 |
US Airways | 1 |
US Bangla Airlines | 1 |
Valujet | 1 |
Varig | 1 |
West Air | 1 |
West Carribean | 1 |
XL Airways | 1 |
Yak Service | 1 |