The year has started with news about plane crashes. Should you be afraid of flying?
Belonged a loud noise, and suddenly there was a gaping hole in the wall of the airborne plane. A gust of wind tore off a teenage boy's hat and shirt. Oxygen masks fell in front of the passengers, some already wrote their last messages to their loved ones.
This is how travelers have described it to the media An Alaskan Airlines flight that had to make an emergency landing after a wall panel came off the plane last week Friday. The incident was extraordinary and dramatic, but no one was seriously injured.
Just a few days earlier, an accident in Japan in which a passenger plane had hit the international news bumped into to a Coast Guard plane on a runway in Tokyo.
A Japan Airlines plane collided with another plane and caught fire on the runway in Tokyo in early January.
Two a serious accident in less than a week raises the question: is flying safe?
In aviation, very special attention is paid to safety. Even minor deviations are reported and recorded by the International Civil Aviation Organization under the United Nations.
However, there are very few accidents compared to the number of flights:
In 2022, a total of 64 air traffic anomaly notifications were made worldwide. 22 of them concerned Boeing 737 planes, which was also the plane of Alaska Airlines.
Now numerous airlines have announced that they will withdraw Boeing 737 aircraft from service for the time being.
In one case, the cause is marked as “unknown”. That's what happened in China about the accident, where the plane suddenly crashed to the ground. All 132 passengers and crew members died. The causes of the accident are not yet known.
A Boeing 737 crashed in China in 2022. The cause of the accident is not yet known.
Accidents are rarely caused by one factor, but are the sum of many unfortunate coincidences, says the head of the Finnish Transport and Communications Agency Traficom Jari Pöntinen. Investigating events afterwards is often slow. The investigation must be done thoroughly in order to improve safety.
The reasons for deviation reports range from turbulence to birds to landing problems. Not all of them are accidents, but the statistics also include, for example, cases of illness and other events that disturb the normal course of the flight.
Three typical reasons for exceptional situations emerge from the reports of recent years:
1. Turbulence shakes the machine
More than 30 people was injured in 2022, when a plane on its way from Arizona to Hawaii in the United States hit the middle of bad turbulence. The injuries were, for example, wounds, contusions and head injuries.
Turbulence is the most common cause of air traffic deviations in statistics. Climate change has been assessed even further to increase turbulence on flights.
Turbulence in the cabin is felt as the tossing and bouncing of the plane. Turbulence rarely causes harm to passengers beyond mild discomfort.
Turbulence is usually reported as a deviation if it has required special measures from the crew. Simply turning on the seat belt light in the aircraft cabin is not yet a reason to register a report, but if the crew has to change the route due to turbulence, for example, a report is made to the authorities.
A Boeing 737 that skidded off the runway in Istanbul broke into pieces.
2. The plane skids off the runway
In 2022, an accident of a very rare severity occurred in Turkey. The plane skidded off the runway in Istanbul and broke into pieces. Nearly 200 people were injured and three died in the accident.
An airplane can run off the runway in different ways. For example, the plane may veer off the runway or the landing may take too long.
The most common reason for runway derailment is weather conditions. For example, if a strong gusty wind quickly changes direction, it can make landing difficult.
Runway derailments are counted in the high risk category. It means that derailment is considered to cause particularly frequent personal injuries or there are frequent incidents.
Runway derailment did not cause a single fatal accident in 2022, although the plane was damaged in all cases.
In the previous year, there were no such accidents at all.
3. Abnormal contact with the runway during landing
The third typical reason for error messages is the plane landing in an unwanted way.
A good landing is “quick but still pleasant enough”, describes Traficom's Pöntinen.
In practice, this means that the plane's wheels touch the runway and stay on the ground without bouncing back into the air, the brakes open and the plane stops in the space reserved for it.
However, the primary goal in landing is not to make the transition as inconspicuous and smooth as possible. A noticeable bump on the runway does not mean that the landing has failed.
Abnormal contact with the runway is, for example, when the plane bounces off the runway back into the air due to too high a speed. The statistics also include, for example, cases where the tail of the plane hits the runway.
In 2022, six such cases occurred. Five of them caused damage to the aircraft. There were no fatalities in any of them.
What so should a person who is afraid of flying now think about recent accidents?
The aviation industry is closely monitored, reminds Jari Pöntinen. The staff regularly participates in training and their skills and health are monitored. The regulation is strict and the authorities monitor compliance.
Also, in light of the statistics, flying is very safe. A total of 2022 people died in road traffic accidents in Finland 196 people – i.e. more than in air travel in the whole world in the same year combined.
Few people still get excited about every car trip.
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