Taiwan's air accident rate higher than world average

This article was published by the Taiwan Headlines on December 12, 2006. It reports that according to statistics provided by the government's Aviation Safety Council, Taiwan's airline industry recorded 28 accidents involving fixed-wing aircraft between 1996 and 2005, with a total of 467 people killed in seven of these accidents.

The number translates into an accident rate of 2.1 per million departures, which is lower than the accident rate of 2.17 per million departures recorded for the 1995-2004 period and that of 2.82 per million departures recorded for the 1994-2003 period.

However, the world's total air accident rate for the 1996-2005 period was 0.89 per million departures. This means that there is much room for improvement for Taiwan's flight safety.

Indeed, of the aforementioned 28 air accidents, 13, or 46.4 percent, occurred during landing. While the aircraft swerved off the runway in seven cases, six accidents occurred during rainy days and another five happened during typhoons.

According to officials from the Aviation Safety Council, in addition to poor weather conditions, the air crew's failure to follow standard operational procedures or their lack of understanding of the aircraft system were responsible for most of the accidents.

According to the Aviation Safety Council, 88 percent of the air accidents recorded by Taiwan's airline industry over the past 10 years were due to human error, 42 percent were related to environmental factors, and 19 percent were related to problems with the aircraft.