Boeing Annual Summary of Commercial Jet Airplane Accidents
Liberty University
AVIA 409 - Safety Management Systems
Professor: Andrew Walton
2022
Description
Each year since 1959, Boeing Commercial Airplanes has published its “Statistical Summary of
Commercial Jet Airplane Accidents Worldwide Operations”. The statistics presented in these Annual
Summaries are based only on commercial jet airplanes which are heavier than 60000lb (27 tonnes)
maximum gross weight. However, aircraft manufactured in the Commonwealth of Independent States
(CIS) or the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) are excluded because of the lack of
operational data. Commercial aeroplanes operated in military service are excluded but if a military-
owned commercial jet transport is used for civilian commercial service, it will be included in respect of
such operations.
Definitions
The definitions used in these Summaries are largely based on corresponding International Civil Aviation
Organisation (ICAO), National Transportation Safety Board (USA) (NTSB) or Flight Safety Foundation
(FSF) terms and are explained in the preface to each edition of the Summary. A few terms, as follows,
are defined by Boeing:
Accident Rates: In general, this expression is a measure of accidents per million departures.
Departures (or flight cycles) are used as the basis for calculating rates, since there is a stronger
statistical correlation between accidents and departures than there is between accidents and
flight hours, or between accidents and the number of airplanes in service, or between accidents
and passenger miles/km or freight miles/km. Since aeroplane departure data is continually
updated and revised as new information and estimating processes become available and used to
update the baseline for the measurement of accident rates, the same rate may vary between
different editions of the Summary.
Airplane Collisions: Events involving two or more aeroplanes are counted as separate events,
one for each aeroplane. So of two aeroplanes are destroyed as the result of a collision, this is
considered as 2 accidents.
Fatal Accident: An accident that results in fatal injury.
Hull Loss: An aeroplane totally destroyed or damaged and not repaired. Hull loss also includes,
but is not limited to, events in which:
oThe airplane is missing; or
oThe search for the wreckage has been terminated without it being located; or
oThe airplane is completely inaccessible.
NB: It is noted that neither the ICAO nor the NTSB currently has a definition for hull loss.
The Definition of an ‘Event’
The following events are not included in the data:
Fatal and non-fatal injuries from natural causes,
Fatal and non-fatal self-inflicted injuries or injuries inflicted by other persons,
Fatal and non-fatal injuries of stowaways hiding outside the areas normally available to the
passengers and crew,
Non-fatal injuries resulting from atmospheric turbulence, normal manoeuvring, loose objects,
boarding, disembarking, evacuation, and maintenance and servicing,
Non-fatal injuries to persons not on board an aeroplane,
Experimental test flights (however, maintenance test flights, ferry, positioning, training, and
demonstration flights are not excluded),
Sabotage, hijacking, terrorism, and military action.
EUROCONTROL's Voluntary ATM Incident Reporting (EVAIR) provides a common platform for
State Air Navigation Service Providers (ANSPs) and aircraft operators (AOs) to comply with Air Traffic
Management (ATM) safety requirements when exchanging safety-related information. EVAIR is the first
example of voluntary ATM incident data collection at pan-European level. It was developed to enable a
proactive approach to ATM and Air Navigation Service (ANS) safety. The collaboration with ANSPs and
AOs, who are actively involved in the reporting, enhances EVAIR’s contribution to the improvement of
ATM safety. The incident reporting, data collection and feedback process as main activities rely on the
fruitful and constant collaboration between airlines and their associations (IATA, ERAA, IACA, ELFA), Air
Navigation Service Provides (ANSPs) and EUROCONTROL. In this process, EUROCONTROL facilitates the
dialogue and exchange of data between airlines and ANSPs; it shares information and makes it available
for stakeholders to support a preventive and proactive approach to safety in the form of active
feedback, quick fix of problems and sharing of lessons learned.
Safety Achievement
Safety achievement is an essential domain of a Safety Management System (SMS) as defined
in ESARR 3 and comprises a set of organisational arrangements, processes and systematic actions
deployed to accomplish the organisation’s safety objectives and achieve high safety standards.
According to ESARR 3 safety achievement is the “the result of processes and/or methods applied
to attain acceptable or tolerable safety.”
Objective
To set up dedicated specific arrangements and processes by which the safety performance of
the organisation is to meet the desired safety standards.
Description
The modern management of safety of aviation operations increasingly relies on a spectrum of
dedicated organisational arrangements, methods and processes to manage proactively the risk.
Worldwide, there is no uniform definition of the set of arrangements, processes, methods and
procedures which, when applied in a consistent manner, will ensure achievement of the organisation’s
safety objectives.
The scope of Safety Achievement as defined in EUROCONTROL ESARR 3 includes also the Safety
Risk Management component of the ICAO SMS Framework.
Safety Achievement Components
The framework established by ESARR 3 is generic enough and can be applied widely by the
different aviation services provider organisations. The Safety Achievement domain includes the
following components:
Competency - A set of organisational arrangements ensuring that personnel are adequately
trained and competent for the job they are required to do, in addition to being properly licensed
if so required and satisfying applicable medical fitness requirements.
SMS Organisational Structure - A safety management function shall be identified with
organisational responsibility for development and management of the safety management
system.
Risk Management - A set of organisational arrangements, processes, procedures and systematic
actions ensuring that safety risks are identified, adequately assessed and mitigated to an
appropriate level to guarantee a safe aviation service.
Quantitative Safety Levels - Wherever practicable, quantitative approach is used to define and
maintain the safety levels as a set of numerical expressions for all functional systems under the
managerial control of the aviation system provider.
Safety Occurrence Reporting - A set of organisational arrangements and systematic actions (an
occurrence reporting system) designed to facilitate the collection of information on actual or
potential safety deficiencies.
Safety Occurrence Investigation - A process and systematic actions ensuring that known
operational and technical occurrences, which are considered to have negative safety
implications, are investigated and analysed in order to prevent their recurrence.
SMS Documentation - An organisational arrangement and systematic actions ensuring that the
SMS is developed and operated as a documented system. The usual means for documenting the
SMS is the Safety Management Manual (SMM) or equivalent documentation.
The Safety Achievement components are closely interrelated and can not be implemented and
applied in isolation. Only a consistent, integrated and systematic application of these processes and
procedures will help increase the aviation system resistance to unsafe acts and hazardous conditions.
