Does anybody know the average number of plane crashes every year?

Question

Also, what are the chances of a random plane crashing? Is there a plane crash every day? Please answer all three questions, and please answer them accurately. Thanx.

Answer 1

It's atypical for there to be less than one per day and common for there to be several per day. To get an idea of what you're looking for, got to www.ntsb.gov, select "aviation" and then select "accident database and synopses." After that, select "monthly list," and you can select anything from yesterday to 1962.

My favorite was a couple of pilots trying to join the mile high club, someone, evidently, got a portion of their anatomy into the yoke with enough force to disengage the autopilot and cause a dive. The a wing broke off, the airplane crashed, the pilot, the pilot rated passenger that had gone out for "simulated instrument practice," both died and the NTSB wrote up a report saying that the pilot's "inappropriate decision to turn her attention away from the duties of flying the aircraft" was the cause of the wreck.

You can get the exact file number for that one on the darwin awards site, I can't seem to come across it at the moment.


There are some other neat ones. You can look them up by date, or by the tail number, (registration number of the airplane,) you don't want to know what dumb pilots, dumb mechanics, or dumb line crews can do to cause crashes.

So, with some patience, and the NTSB adress, you can build your own average over a 45 year period.

Good Luck

Answer 2

These answers here are very very loaded and misleading. Its true that there were nearly 2000 "accidents" involving aircraft last year. However, the FAA defines the term "accident" to include any incident that results in death, injury, serious damage to the aircraft or damage to property on the ground that exceeds $20,000. So this statistic is fact different than the term "crash." Personally, I'll define "crash" to mean any airplane that departs for its destination, initiates a takeoff and doesn't complete its flight. This eliminates all the idiots that simply drive off a taxiway and bend their lairplanes, or accidentally drive their BMWs into their wingtips. Both of those would constitute "accidents" under the FAA rule, but in my mind constitute idiocy. There are something like 250-300 airplane "crashes" during an average year, which result in about 180 fatalities (again on average). Considering there are approximately 40,000 aircraft currently registered in the US, that is a crash rate of about .00625%. Sitting on your couch watching tv is statistically more dangerous. AND the cast majority of these are privately owned aircraft (In fact nearly all of them since 2001 have been.) There has been exactly 1 crash of a US based commercial airliner since January 1, 2002...over 5 years. That was a Comair Airlines CRJ-200 flight out of Lexington, KY that killed all but one person on board.

Answer 3

For airlines and commercial aviation - the information is available at -
http://aviation-safety.net/statistics/period/stats.php?cat=A1
(World Wide)
For 2006 - There were 27 accidents (commercial airliners) worldwide with 888 fatalities. The average number would depend on the period you choose (last 10 years, etc.) Average accidents per year looks like will be steady around the 30 range. So every 14 days somewhere in the world.

If your looking for information regarding general aviation - http://www.aopa.org/asf/publications/06nall.pdf
See page 5. 1436 Accidents, of which 242 were fatal. There were 25.4 Million flight hours for GA - 4.6 accidents a day/0.63 are fatal.

Any questions, let me know

Answer 4

okay, im going to give you the average that i found on this link...138 per year is the average. the ratio is 1 to 2,067,000. i got this from a graph: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/planecrash/risky.html
it continues to explain that this is a average from 1999 to 2003(this is excluding 9/11). u must understand that this includes private jets and other plane owners as well. sometimes in one year, there isnt a single plane that crashes. check out the website, i think i will help.

Answer 5

For the statistics in the US your best bet to find the information is on the NTSB website - they have all of the current information on crashes, etc...

http://www.ntsb.gov/aviation/aviation.htm