How does Australias aviation safety record compare with that of
other Western countries? To answer this, fatal accident and
fatality rates for Australia were compared with similar rates for
the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and New Zealand,
between 1995 and 2004 (the latest year for which comparable data
was available). The ATSB aviation accident and incident database
was searched to identify all fatal accidents involving Australian
civil registered aircraft during this period. The dataset was then
matched with comparable datasets for the overseas countries, taking
into consideration the variation in operational definitions between
the countries. In the period studied, Australia had no high
capacity regular public transport fatal accidents and one low
capacity regular public transport fatal accident. The key findings
indicated that the fatal accident rate for Australian air carrier
operations, which includes all regular public transport and
commercial charter operations, was slightly higher than the rate
for the United States for all years, except for 2002 when it was
marginally lower, and for 2004, when the rate was zero. The fatal
accident rates for the non-general aviation sector for both
countries are largely influenced by the commercial charter
(Australia) and on-demand (United States) operational categories,
which each have a much higher fatal accident rate than scheduled
airline services. In Australia, commercial charter operations
account for 32 per cent of the total air carrier activity. This has
a greater impact on the overall air carrier fatal accident rate
compared with the United States, where on-demand operations account
for only 15 per cent of the total air carrier activity. If
Australias activity profile mirrored that of the United States,
Australias overall fatal accident rate would fall below that of the
United States. Both Australia and the United States recorded a
significant downward trend for the general aviation fatal accident
rate. For most years, the rate of fatal accidents for all
operations in Australia was slightly lower than that for Canada.
Australia also recorded a significant decline in the rate of
non-public transport fatal accidents during this period compared
with the United Kingdom. Australia recorded one low capacity
regular public transport fatal accident, which resulted in eight
fatalities, and New Zealand recorded two fatal accidents, which
resulted in 10 fatalities. The general aviation fatal accident rate
for Australia was lower than the rate recorded for New Zealand, and
showed a downward trend. Overall, the findings showed that
Australias fatal accident and fatality rates were mostly similar to
the corresponding rates of the other countries examined. Using
North America and the United Kingdom to represent worlds best
practice and as a benchmark of aviation safety, the findings
demonstrate that Australia has a good safety record.