page_title: Aviation accidents and incidents
section_title: Safety
hierarchical_section_title: Aviation accidents and incidents / Safety
caption_attribution_description: English: Brazilian Air Force personnel recover the flight data recorder of PR-GTD, the Boeing 737-8EH used for Gol Transportes Aéreos Flight 1907, in the Amazon Rainforest in Mato Grosso, Brazil. PR-GTD crashed after a September 29, 2006 mid-air collision with a business jet. Português: Militares da Aeronáutica seguram caixa-preta do Boeing 737-800, da GOL Linhas Aéreas, que caiu no Mato Grosso.
context_page_description: An aviation accident is defined by the Convention on International Civil Aviation Annex 13 as an occurrence associated with the operation of an aircraft, which takes place from the time any person boards the aircraft with the intention of flight until all such persons have disembarked, and in which a) a person is fatally or seriously injured, b) the aircraft sustains significant damage or structural failure, or c) the aircraft goes missing or becomes completely inaccessible. Annex 13 defines an aviation incident as an occurrence, other than an accident, associated with the operation of an aircraft that affects or could affect the safety of operation.
  A hull loss occurs if an aircraft is destroyed, damaged beyond repair, lost, or becomes completely inaccessible.
  The first fatal aviation accident was the crash of a Rozière balloon near Wimereux, France, on June 15, 1785, killing the balloon's inventor, Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier, and the other occupant, Pierre Romain.
context_section_description: In over one hundred years of implementation, aviation safety has improved considerably. In modern times, two major manufacturers still produce heavy passenger aircraft for the civilian market: Boeing in the United States, and the European company Airbus. Both of these manufacturers place a huge emphasis on the use of aviation safety equipment, now a billion-dollar industry in its own right; safety is a key selling point for these companies, as they recognize that a poor safety record in the aviation industry is a threat to corporate survival.
  Some major safety devices now required in commercial aircraft are:
  Evacuation slides, to aid rapid passenger exit from an aircraft in an emergency situation
  Advanced avionics, incorporating computerized auto-recovery and alert systems
  Turbine engines with improved durability and failure containment mechanisms
  Landing gear that can be lowered even after loss of power and hydraulics
  Measured on a passenger-distance calculation, air travel is the safest form of transportation available: Figures mentioned are the ones shared by the air industry when quoting air safety statistics. A typical statement, e.g., by the BBC: "UK airline operations are among the safest anywhere. When compared to all other modes of transport, on a 'fatality per mile basis', air transport is the safest — six times safer than traveling by car; twice as safe as rail."
  When measured by fatalities per person transported, however, buses are the safest form of transportation. The number of air travel fatalities per person is surpassed only by bicycles and motorcycles. This statistic is used by the insurance industry when calculating insurance rates for air travel.
  For every billion kilometers traveled, trains have a fatality rate that is 12 times higher than that of air travel, and the fatality rate for automobiles is 62 times greater than for air travel. By contrast, for every billion journeys taken, buses are the safest form of transportation; using this measure, air travel is three times more dangerous than car transportation, and almost 30 times more dangerous than travelling by bus.
  A 2007 study by Popular Mechanics magazine found that passengers sitting at the back of an airplane are 40% more likely to survive a crash than those sitting at the front. The article quotes Boeing, the FAA, and a website on aircraft safety, all of which claim that there is no "safest" seat. The study examined 20 crashes, not taking into account the developments in safety after those accidents. However, a flight data recorder is usually mounted in the aircraft's empennage (tail section) where it is more likely to survive a severe crash.
  Between 1983 and 2000, the survival rate for people in U.S. plane crashes was greater than 95 per cent.
caption: Brazilian Air Force personnel recover the flight data recorder of Gol Transportes Aéreos Flight 1907, which crashed on September 29, 2006.
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