I have been writing on Airlinestravel.ro for 8 years. I have published thousands of news, articles and editorials about flights, planes, airlines, airports, people in aviation and everything in the aviation industry. Our focus is on civil aviation.
All this time I wrote about accidents and incidents from aviation. We need to be aware that no one and nothing is intangible. Inevitably, airplanes also fail, people make mistakes, mistakes on the ground or in flight. It is true that the plane is the safest means of public transport, a statement proved by statistics.
The chances of getting involved in an accident / aviation incident are very low, but it can happen anytime. We do not want to scare anyone, but we want to encourage people to fly, but also to realize the risks. Let's make people pay attention to on-board companions, to respect the basic rules when traveling by plane.
More aviation accidents and incidents?
During the 8 years of activity, I was reminded of the first aviation accident with victims that I published on AirlinesTravel. It's about collapse of a Boeing 737-200, in Pakistan. 127 passengers lost their lives. It was a short story, but exciting. Then there were others, but the emotions remained.
I wrote about airplanes involved in severe turbulence, planes out of runways, planes engulfed by flames. We have published information about different incidents and accidents that happened on the ground or during the flight. The most common were medical emergencies, depressurizations, birdstrike incidents, etc. But pilots are trained for such cases.
It is worth mentioning that I did not even write about all the incidents and accidents recorded in aviation. Many of them were minors, without victims and it is natural that we cannot even cover all the unpleasant events in the whole world. For example, there are periodic incidents where 2 or more planes hit the ground, lightly buffering. Every day less pleasant events take place, but they are not the subject of news.
For example, the year 2020 did not start too well for the aeronautical industry. On January 8, a The Boeing 737-800 UIA crashed near Tehran. After the tragic event, 176 people lost their lives, 9 crew members and NUMBER of passengers. On January 11th, in the face of clear evidence, Iranian authorities admit that the plane was accidentally shot down by 2 missiles fired from a military base. It was an accident that shook the entire industry. But this is not the first such accident. Against the background of political tensions, there were other accidents with civilian planes accidentally shot down.
Followed the case of a McDonnell Douglas MD-83 Caspian Airlines, which reached a street in Iran. A Boeing 767-300ER Air Canada safely landed in Madrid, having technical problems. On the evening of February 5, 2020, Boeing 737-800 (TC-IZK) Pegasus Airlines departed from runway at Istanbul International Airport - Sabiha Gökçen, and 3 people lost their lives.
Other incidents since the beginning of 2020. Yesterday, a 737-800 Pegasus was evacuated in an emergency in Dusseldorf. In January, another 737-800 Pegasus plane went off the runway, with no casualties. In February, 2 planes were involved in "Tailstrike" incidents - the tail hit the runway at takeoff. A Boeing 737-500 UTair went off the runway in Usinsk (photo / video). And the list is longer.
Greater media coverage?
If we take a look at some statistics released by aviation-safety.net/, we notice that the number of accidents with victims, recorded in civil aviation, is not very high. And every year, progress is being made to reduce the number of victims.
ASN 2019 report: 20 accidents and 283 deceased persons
ASN 2018 report: 15 accidents and 556 deceased persons
ASN 2017 report: 10 accidents and 44 deceased persons
ASN 2016 report: 19 accidents and 325 deceased persons
ASN 2015 report: 16 accidents and 560 deceased persons
According to the Aviation Safety Network report, approximately 2019 million civilian flights were operated in 39. It follows that there was an accident with victims on 2 million flights operated.
As for incidents, there are inevitably such unpleasant situations. The number of flights has increased steadily in recent years, as have the number of commercial aircraft operating at airports around the world. But statistically speaking, the situation is increasingly optimistic.
And now back to the title: "More accidents and incidents or more media?". In my opinion, we are talking about greater publicity of all accidents and incidents.
There have been few cases where the press made "Shock and horror" from minor incidents. And "Breaking News" has started to be used in any news of buffering / turbulence or depressurization. And since the emergence of smart phones with high-performance cameras (smartphones), new events have been photographed and filmed, then multimedia material has reached social networks. In those days there were no such digital tools, and people didn't know what was going on in the world. The information circulated hard even in the classic press.
There were numerous aeronautical events in the past years, but less publicized. Now there are fewer, but more media. Conclusion: Fly with confidence! What do you think? More accidents or wider media?